I read the article. I was in total agreement with it's point about Microsoft using their license agreement to force vendors to not dual boot. I was all prepared to launch into a tirade with my non-technical fiancee about why this was all so evil. She never cares about these things but humors me once a week with tirades. I almost burned up my tirade for the week on this article.
Whew! What saved me was the following thought: Microsoft worked hard (coded, marketed, bug fixed, lied, stole, cheated) to get to where it is today. People buy x86 machines because that is what Windows runs on, if they wanted something else, they would buy a Macintosh. Most people buying a Dell Dimension (home use) ask, "This comes with Windows 9.x on it right?" I know this for a fact because I have two good friends who work as telephone salesreps in Dell Nashville facility (sells Dimensions and Inspirons.)
They ask about Windows. They don't ask about Be or Linux. They are coming to Dell to buy a Windows machine (for whatever sick reason they have.) Why should Be or RedHat get a FREE ride on the Microsoft Marketing train? Why should other OSs be FREELY installed on a machine that Microsoft paid good money to help sell to the consumer?
Sure, I know they have a monopoly. I know they abuse it. One way they got the monopoly is by licensing practices with OEMs. Those techniques were just as available to other OS Vendors in 1984. Microsoft was just smarter, and more underhanded. If they got a monopoly by having strict licensing terms that was obviously to their advantage. OEMs could have choosen not to go with Microsoft, but they didn't. Because consumers wanted Microsoft, and they wanted a Microsoft machine at a low price, so the OEMs signed pacts with the devil in order to get that low price.
What I would consider is a more viable option of the customer paying extra money in order to have a dual boot system. Even if the OEM is getting the second, or third, OS for free, by making a purchasing choice the consumer is saying "I want that BeOS."
If you want just Windows, you pay the price for Windows.
If you want Be and Windows, you pay for that option. It might be just $20, but you pay. Maybe Microsoft should be forced to modify their OEM license to state that the reduced discount for selling a Windows/Be dual boot is $89. That is how much more that license of Windows will cost the OEM. So, the OEM passes that on to the consumer. That means the money, for purchases the choice to have a dual boot machine from Dell, goes straight to Microsoft. The company who probably got the customer interested in buying a computer in the first place.
Roaming Profiles, plus System Policies, works. I've used it in Corporate as well as a hospital setting.
There are user profiles and there are the user files. The user profiles contain application settings and should be placed in a share on the network and downloaded when a user logs in. The user files should also be a shared home directory and are accessed only when needed.
Users should place shortcuts to the files they need, or file folders, on their desktop, not the files themselves. This can be enforced in several ways via System Policies.
I have had great success with these methods. Most of what I have seen mentioned in this thread are legitimate concerns that often run into, but can be overcome with a little bit of research. I suggest O'Reilly's collection of books on Windows NT Administration, particularly Windows NT User Administration and Windows System Policy Editory.
All this really goes to show is that a technology such as Stealth can be overcome with other technology. The problem is that these aircraft are built with current "radar" technology in mind. There might be a revolution in radars, and a cheap one at that, which will instantly obsolete Stealth aircraft. Now you are stuck with a 100billion dollar investment and you didn't even get to bomb a single city.
This whole scenario has already been played out in Star Trek. The Romulans invented a cloaking device, the Federation stole it. Eventually the Federation learned how to send out Tachyon pulses (and tachyon webs) and how to find cloaked vessels. Once that happens, all the investment the Romulans put into the cloaking device makes them nearly useless.
The problem is not SPAM, it is people who respond to the ads and promises of SPAM. If, instead of going after the junk mailers, we proscecuted the idiots who respond to it, it will die off quickly. After all, SPAM only exists because they are getting people to respond.
If advertising on TV was shown to be 100% ineffective, guess what? No advertisements anymore (and also no TV).
Well, if the FBI sets up some bogus companies, sends some SPAM, and throws the respondents in Jail, boom, we get people afraid of the crackdown and they won't respond to any SPAM. Soon, the SPAMers quit.
Or, of course, we could just pummel the people who do respond and make them public displays of idiocy for everyone to laugh at and ridicule. That might work too.
So, it took the thousand eyes of the community to see this bug in the agreement.
If Microsoft doesn't even know all the legalese it spits out, nor keeps track of it, then how can the poor consumer? This just isn't fair.
The statements should be nice and simple. We will not share any information you give us with anybody, not now, not ever. We won't even tell ourselves. Thank you for using our service.
In NT 4.0 reskit, there's a little utility to log in remotely to a command console. This is brought forward in the Win2K reskit. This logs you in without a UI on the remote host, and you can run all your favorite command line tools. Which in NT 4.0 is useless but in Win2K is useful as you can do nearly everything via the cli (the number of cli.exe's jumped from ~80 to over 400).</i><p>
<p>Just for those who care, O'Reilly has just released it's Pocket Reference of Windows 2000 Commands. Makes learning all those things just a little bit easier.<p>
The point I was trying to make is that everyone shows the best side of the product in an ad - MS, Redhat, whoever - that's advertising.
How sad that this is accepted. One of the critical points for captilalism to work correctly is that the consumer has to be informed and know what the better product for their needs is. Modern day adverstising (and reviews) tell you little about the product in a manner you can use to make an informed purchase. Lies like this X-box show, and I'm sure just about every other advertiser uses, just makes it that much harder for a consumer, who doesn't spend a lot of time in research, to make an informed purchasing decision.
This is late in the game to post a response to your statement, but I'll do it anyway.
Children in the US are treated vastly better than children in most other parts of the world. The notion of childhood as we have it in the Western World is a relatively unique concept that has only been around since Victorian times.
In fact, you are totally misunderstanding what it means to be a child. The freedoms you gain, the rights you don't yet have. It is a distinct time period that should be enjoyed for what it is. We do not want children treated as physically smaller adults. That is what happened prior to 1600 and still happens in many places around the world. If we do what you say, then we are going backwards not forwards. Sadly, this is actually happening due to many factors, one of which is the Internet, Television, and other forms of mass media.
Read Elizabeth Essenstein's "The Printing Press as an agent of change" to get an idea as to what changed just prior to 1600, then read Neil Postman's "The Disappearance of Childhood" to learn why we should be concerned about giving children too many "rights".
Erore should mean "One Mind" according to The Languages of Tolkien's Middle-earth by Ruth S. Noel. Er is "one" and ore is "mind". I never did get into what comes first or second so maybe it means "mind one."
Nice pictures. I've had a couple of those calendars in years past, though I haven't bought one recently. Have you seen www.nightrunner.com yet? Great source for Tolkien art.
Great domain name. In the past I've thought of getting a Tolkien inspired domain, but haven't yet.
I was teasing. I know you know where the name come. It's obvious from the intelligence of your posts. I've yet to hear a Tolkien fan who actually cheered for the Orcs.
I'm a huge dwarf fan myself, so your name really jumped out. My username, Erore, is Quenyan (supposedly) and something I made up about 18 years ago to use as a magic-user in AD&D.
I love the story of Turin myself. Beleg was a favorite of mine. I still cry when Turin kills him.
You are refering to a reader needing to have a "willing suspension of disbelief." It is a requirement of all stories that are not themselves, true. You have to be willing to accept the fantastic elements of the story in order to enjoy it. But, within the framework that the story creates, these fantastic elements themselves must be logical and consistent.
For instance, in Star Trek we are asked to believe that faster than light travel is possible. Fine, I accept that. It works. They travel around and do things. Star Trek falls apart in that they do not have real societies based upon faster than light travel; societies that spread across solar systems. They supplied a techonology, warp drive, but not the realistic society in which it is used. This is inconsistent and therefore, less believable.
In the Lost Boys were are asked to believe that Vampires do exist. Fine, I suspend my lack of belief in Vampires. However, we then see a whole brood of them killed off by a bunch of amatuers. None of them was exactly a fear inspiring or difficult to kill being like Dracula. By making Vampires easy to kill, you loose credibility that they are an ancient race that has survived for hundreds of years. Heck, these little punks could have been whiped out by a cheerleader (aka Buffy).
Blade, the movie, painted a bit more realistic picture at least in the social aspects of Vampires existing. That they would be involved in business, that they would have mortals who were worshipful of them, that they would have societies and needs and wants. They were still easy to kill, but it was still much more believable than Lost Boys, or Buffy.
Tolkien asks us to accept that elves, dwarves, dragons, and magic are real. Once we accept that, everything else falls into place. His history is so complete, and so thorough, that never once do you really feel that anything utterly fantastic is happening. Things are logical and consistent. Dwarves and men trade, kingdoms rise and fall, treaties are made and broken, wars occur and peace ensues.
The Matrix is a pretty good example as well. All you need really accept is that we are plugged into a virtual world. Once you accept that, all else falls into place. It doesn't really make you think at any point, hey, that can't happen in this fantasy world, that is just too bizarre.
Don't belittle Tolkien's achievement with your English Lit argument. I know you don't mean too, but it comes across that way.
It is difficult to have a battle of wits with an unarmed man. I'm not meaning that personally, but you do not have a good grasp of the material.
You are wrong. Gandalf, Elrond, Aragorn, Galadriel all refuse the ring because they fear that they will succomb to it's power. Galadriel's temptation is the most elegant and complete description of this temptation. The Council of Elrond provides the background. Frodo knew very well the burden he was bearing, and what it was capable of. That is why he offered it to Galadriel, because he saw the good she could do with it; she saw the evil.
Sauron did not copy the skills of Gandalf, Elrond, or Galadriel. The elven rings were made by Celebrimbor (grandson of Feanor the greatest elven smith ever) and Sauron never touched them. However, since their construction was dependent upon ring lore which Sauron revealed to Celebrimbor, they were still slaves to the One Ring.
The Elves were not the supreme race on earth. You seem convinced of that and I don't understand why. Read the Silmarillion, find out why the Elves were glad for the arrival of the Edain (men) into Beleriand because they were a hardy race and able to keep watch on Morgoth (Sauron's mentor; think Emperor to Sauron's Darth Vader) in the extreme cold where the elves would not go for long. Read about how the dwarves were the only ones to withstand the onslaught of the Father of Dragons, Glaurung, while the elves fled. Find out about Turin Turambar who slew Glaurung, and Hurin his father, the greatest warrior to ever live, who defended the retreat of the elves during the 5th battle and was the last on the field that day, killing 70 trolls as he hacked through the ranks of the bodyguard of the Lord of Balrogs.
The Wise did know of Hobbits. Gandalf had taken an interest in them for many years and long studied them. The Dunedain, the survivors of the ancient kingdom of Arthedain (of which Aragorn was chief), had long guarded the Shire and kept watch on the hobbits. Bilbo had adventures, had carried the ring, and he was known and loved by elves, dwarves, and men. He had found the One Ring, saved the dwarves, helped bring about the downfall of the great dragon Smaug, and indirectly helped bring Elves, men, dwarves, and eagles together to wipe out a large portion of the goblins in that area of the world. Bilbo legitimized hobbits like no other. The Wise knew of hobbits.
Two lesser hobbits? I assume you mean Merry and Pippin. The two hobbits who raised the Ents to take action and destroy Saruman's war machine? The hobbits who became knights of two of the most powerful kingdoms of men? The hobbits who helped with the killing of the Chief of the Nazgul, who helped recover the Shire from Saruman's clutches, who sat exposed to the will of Sauron himself through the palantir and resisted as even Saruman could not?
Gandalf does not just ride in to save the day. He sacrificed himself against the Balrog, yes. If not him, Aragorn, or Boromir, or Legolas would have. He did not lead the Hourns to Helm's Deep, they came because of their hatred of orcs, they were mustered by the Ents, who were roused to fight by Treebeard, who was convinced by the two hobbits you discounted. Gandalf was not a deux ex machina, as you would have him be. His appearances and arrival make good sense. Did he save the hobbits from Old Man Willow? The Barrow Wights? Bree? Weathertop? Shelob's Lair? Cirith Ungol? No, he did not. Did he seize an opportunity to direct the eagles to the rescue of Frodo and Sam once the ring had been destroyed? Yes, he is intelligent and knew what was happening.
The Lord of the Rings is not a children's story in the sense that you mean it. It is high fantasy, epic, dark, glorious, and real. Many people hold that themes get repeated, and the same is true for LotR. Tolkien was a professor of Anglo-Saxon literature and he drew upon many stories, names, legends, etc to create his work. In fact, he did such a good job, that Tolkien's very complete fantasy world helps a modern reader better understand such works as Beawulf, King Arthur, and the Ring Cycle. It can however, be enjoyed by children and adults.
Boromir was not a weak human. In fact, he is a typical man. Strong, capable, and frustrated that he can not exercise his will (which in his heart he believes to be pure) for the good of everyone. He was strong in that he realized his errors and short comings. Boromir is everyman in a very real way.
There are very good reasons why the Lord of the Rings is a book/books that appears at the top of every most influential books list. I'm sorry that you are missing them.
In later years a Tolkein-groupie approached my grandmother asking all sorts of questions about Mrs Tolkein, her theory being that Galadriel was based on her.
Tolkien imagined his wife more as Luthien, the most beautiful woman to have ever lived. Read about her in the story of Beren and Luthien in the Silmarillion. A love so strong that it defied the gods and death itself. In fact, John's and Edith's tombstones read:
EDITH MARY TOLKIEN LUTHIEN 1889-1971
JOHN RONALD REUEL TOLKIEN BEREN 1892-1973
Why? The plot! It simply didn't make sense. Here was a ring, that could determine the fate of the entire world. And who is assigned to go to the land of Mordor and destroy it? A moronic hobbit who has never been more than a few miles away from his house! OK, I am sort of convinced of the need for secrecy and the fact that they couldn't send an army to do the task, but a hobbit??
I think Tolkien handled this quite well actually. A few things come to mind:
A sense of fate. Fate that a small hobbit first found this ring. A progression of small hobbits owned it actually. Deagol, Smeagol, Bilbo, and Frodo. It was destined into their hands and perhaps their duty to carry it to it's destruction.
Fear of what the great ones would do with this. We find Gandalf refusing the temptation, Galadriel tempted but resisting, Saruman corrupted just by wanting it, and Boromir nearly ruined by wanting but redeemed. It's like saying we have an Earth destructo ray that we are afraid the enemy might use against, or in despair we might use ourselves, so lets take it to it's destruction and only let someone too stupid to use it carry it. Hobbits are resistant to the temptation. They represent basic, good, sensible people (best shown by Samwise outside Cirith Ungol).
You might be underplaying the need for secrecy. They could not challenge Sauron head on. Frodo himself was caught, but the captors did not know the significance. The Mouth of Sauron, while negotiating with the Armies of the West did not know that the one Ring was in Mordor...if he did no army would be on the field, it would be scouring Mordor for ultimate victory. If they had captured an elven lord such as Glorfindel, they would have been more concerned, and did a lot more searching.
You seem to think that it was Gandalf's or Saruman's job to directly confront Sauron and his armies. It was not. In fact, Saruman's desire to do just that was his downfall. The Istari (wizards) were there to unite the people, provide guidance, wisdom, and hope. Gandalf alone succeeded. They were emissaries of the spiritual beings of the world (lesser gods if you will) and acted as instruments of their will.
You are making the incorrect assumption that elves are superior to hobbits. As the books point out, Frodo did what an elf probably could not, he resisted temptation. Immortality, good looks, and perfect health do not a superior person make.
I'm sorry that you didn't enjoy the book the second time around. I did. And the 10th as well. There is a depth to Tolkien's works that cannot be found in any other Fantasy writing.
His best works, to me, are the stories of the Silmarillion, published after his death and edited by his son. Check it out sometime.
Scenario: You've setup your own machine and only you know root. You get fired. How will they get to your data?
Scenario: Corporate wide they decide to deploy a new application that requires Windows on all PCs. Something they thought they had. They get to your machine and find out that it doesn't have windows. They also find that you have spent the last two years coding custom utilities that will not work on Windows. What do they do? They need you to use those utilities, they also need you to use the custom application. What if 5% of the workers fall into the same boat.
Point being, don't sneak, ask. IS should be root on your machine, and IS should know what OS you are running and why.
Article II, Section 1, Clause 3 to be more precise.
Also, if you will read in that same clause, the Vice-President is the Nominee who receives the secondmost votes. Why doesn't that happen anymore? It used to be that Vice-Presidents might actually be of different parties than the President.
Read Article V to find out about the Amendment process. Which, if a change to the Constitution is needed, this is how it will be done. So, your answer to my query is really silly. Obviously what I am talking about is a change to our system of goverment.
Such as what happened in the 12th Ammendment when the election process was changed and you specifically voted for Vice-President and people actually started running for that position.
If a Presidential Nominee receives 51% of the popular vote(assuming there are only two candidates to vote on), but only 10% of the eligible voters actually voted...can you honestly say we have a new President that the citizens of our country actually want?
Why are voters so apathetic? Is it because they assume things will just keep on working regardless of their single vote? Is it because a single vote seems to do so little in light of the massive sway special interest groups seem to have with their block voting? Is it because they are truly dismayed that a nation as great as America can only produce such pitiful Presidential Nominees?
I say that a Presidential Nominee cannot be President until at least 50% of eligible voters actually vote. Truthfully the percentage should be higher. If a Nominee cannot gather enough interest in themselves or their platform to get more voters to turn out, then we just shouldn't have a new President until they can.
I can respond to this, since I just sat in on a class at which the two guest speakers(FBI guys with the suits to prove it), who are very high up in the FBI Carnivore and Encryption programs, spoke about this very topic.
1) Criminals are dumb. One speaker relayed conversations he heard through wire taps in which one caller told another caller to keep his voice down the Feds might be listening.
2) The FBI wants all commercial encryption software to use recoverable means. Not by some secret backdoor that only the government posseses, but one that a dis-interested third party can use when the Feds have obtained the necessary court order to do so.
3) Your question will then be, why should criminals use software with built in recoverable means. See #1. Criminals are stupid and will use methods that are easily available to them.
4) The NSA will not get involved in Carnivore. The purpose of the FBI is to collect evidence that can be used in a court of law. If the NSA is involved, then they will be forced to reveal that they had the ability to crack this encryption or that bit strength. Doing so relates back your very own statement that you want to keep your methods a secret. If the NSA is known to have an ability, then the people they spy on will change their methods. That is because the NSA actually has to deal with Intelligence (gent) operations, not stupid criminals.
5) The FBI only performed some 350 wiretaps last year. Combined nationwide with local authorities, state, and Federal, only some 1320 were done. To date, only 25 Carnivore installs have been done. That is going back 2 years nearly. The majority of wiretaps are for Drug cases, and the majority do not amount to any evidence that can be used for a conviction. I could not get clear information on how useful the 25 Carnivore installs have been.
6) Carnivore runs on Windows NT. They have a team of engineers whose sole purpose is to worry about the security. I think they spend the day looking at microsoft.com and hoping they have downloaded all patches.;-)I saw version 1.3.4 I believe, and 2.0 is being worked on. The speaker stated that when they come to install Carnivore, the ISP is given the option of using software they provide and trust in place of Carnivore if such software can meet the demands of the court order. Most ISPs will not want to do this because they will then be reponsible for testifying in court about the evidence collection methods.
7) I asked specifically about the use of Open Source programs in relation to # 6. The speaker waffled and did not seem to like the idea of Open Source for fear that known methods will lead to criminals using methods for evasion. Which does not seem to tie in at all with the dumb criminal theory the other speaker insisted upon. Instead, they would like to see a Commercial vendor make a product they could use, and that the methods of collection (how to track a dynamic IP assignment)
8) Criminals aren't all that stupid all the time. The biggest and the baddest will be quite smart and will use smart methods. Since these are some of the ones we want to catch the most badly, they will not use recoverable encryption either on the telephone or over the Net and Carnivore and wiretaps will do no good in the investigation.
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. A Cobalt Cube can server up to 10 million objects a day, meaning files, e-mail, and web pages. So, if it was web only, that little puppy with just 16MB of RAM and Kernal 2.0.x will outperform the Dells. And it is cute too.
Remember how Word '97 couldn't read some files from earlier Word versions? If you wanted to read '97 files you had to update. Whether you wanted to or not or needed to or not.
I certainly do not remember this because what you state is FALSE
Word 97 was perfectly capable of reading earlier versions of Word files. Earlier versions of Word could not necessarily read Word 97 files, that is what happens when file formats are upgraded. Other software programs have done this. This was documented and announced when Office 97 came out.
The complaint was this, that when you were working with Word 97 and choose to save as a Word 95, it did not save it in true.doc format (binary compatible). Instead, the output was a Rich Text Format, which is not as "robust" as 95 format (ie 6.0). Microsoft goofed, admitted it, and released a binary level converter that would save as true Word 95 docs.
Also, Microsoft released a free Word 97 viewer so users of earlier version could view and print. Also, they released an add-on to Word 95 so that owners could open Word 97 docs and modify them, even if formatting features of the new version were lost if there was not a compatible feature in the 95 version.
More than fair for them to release these freebies. The stink was that they did not inform the user that the Save As command in 97 was RTF.
Get your facts straight. People always complain about the lies MS or others say about Linux and Open Source/Free Software, well make sure you don't spread lies about MS as well. Damn them for what they do, not what you have a vague rememberance of what they might have done. And telling someone who sends you a file, you cannot read it in the format sent is VALID to do. Linux users say it all the time. If they want to communicate to you, they will.
Gimme a break Mr Upsilon. If you honestly believe that technological advances do not have an impact upon society or the individual then you must have already succumed to the mind control prevalent in the US that all techonology is neutral, it is how you use it.
What do bigger and better guns get us but bigger and bloodier wars? What does our total dependence upon the automobile get us but a war in the Middle-east, high gas prices, suburban sprawl, high consumer debt to pay for it, high insurance, lawsuits, breakdown of the traditional family as children move far away, and so forth?
Technology is decidly not neutral. Like all things it has its advantages and disadvantages. It is only by carefully weighing what you will gain vs what you will lose; what society will gain vs what it will lose, can you we ever make intelligent decisions about the implementation of technology.
Sadly, this kind of discussion and consideration does not go on in the US to a large degree. And we are the poorer for it. Oh, sure, we might be more technologically advanced because of our blind acceptance, but are we better off as a person or a group of people?
Read books by Neil Postman such as Technopoly, or from others such as the Future Does Not Compute, Silicon Snake Oil, The Cult of Information; visit Steve Talbot's site on called Netfuture.
As for the cell phones...you are right, no one has a gun to their head to use it. However, they might have a job that says they must, and they might just be stuck at a debt to income ratio level that says they can't afford to switch jobs, move, or take any cut in pay. All choices they made, many of which are influenced by technology, either directly or indirectly.
Actually, the majority of stories on Slashdot appear to be whimsical or irrelevant; at the very least very arbitrary.
But, I know what you mean.
Re:So I can't sell both MIPS and Wintel boxen?
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Minor quip, Microsoft does not make Windows NT, 2000 or 9x for any other architecture except for x86. The Alpha port of NT was dropped, as was the MIPS and PowerPC before that. Windows CE runs on something I don't know what. Embedded NT...I have no idea.
The short answer is Yes, there is a connection between technology and society. The long answer is it has always been this way.
A stone became a tool in the hands of primitive man and he could use it to crush, kill, tear, shape, etc. This was technology at work and it changed primitive man's life. Made him capable of killing more effeciently so less time was spent hunting, or to say, less time was spent dying because of lack of food.
Agriculture was an invention that led to towns and cities. More food for more people led to more population growth. Technology once again affects men and helps to create society.
Writing still another advancement that led to knowledge continuing past a persons lifetime. This knowledge led to faster improvements in other areas. Society adapts to this new technology.
The Printing Press led to writing being available to everyone. The literary society is born, the Protestant Reformation occurs, scientific growth and understanding increases. Technology shapes nations.
Modern day, we have become a society who revere technology. It has upsurped the role or religion in many people's lives. It holds the promise to our future, the solutions to all of our problems, even the ones it helps to create.
Technology is not a benign thing. It has the potential for good uses, and the potential for bad uses, but either use always has consequences. A nuclear bomb can be used as a weapon of war, or as a deterrent. The deterrent would seem to be the better use, but it led to the Cold War and all the economic and social ramifications of that.
It is only natural that things happening in the realm of technology are reflected in society. Or vice versa since neither exist in a vacuum.
Slashdot Mirror
I read the article. I was in total agreement with it's point about Microsoft using their license agreement to force vendors to not dual boot. I was all prepared to launch into a tirade with my non-technical fiancee about why this was all so evil. She never cares about these things but humors me once a week with tirades. I almost burned up my tirade for the week on this article.
Whew! What saved me was the following thought: Microsoft worked hard (coded, marketed, bug fixed, lied, stole, cheated) to get to where it is today. People buy x86 machines because that is what Windows runs on, if they wanted something else, they would buy a Macintosh. Most people buying a Dell Dimension (home use) ask, "This comes with Windows 9.x on it right?" I know this for a fact because I have two good friends who work as telephone salesreps in Dell Nashville facility (sells Dimensions and Inspirons.)
They ask about Windows. They don't ask about Be or Linux. They are coming to Dell to buy a Windows machine (for whatever sick reason they have.) Why should Be or RedHat get a FREE ride on the Microsoft Marketing train? Why should other OSs be FREELY installed on a machine that Microsoft paid good money to help sell to the consumer?
Sure, I know they have a monopoly. I know they abuse it. One way they got the monopoly is by licensing practices with OEMs. Those techniques were just as available to other OS Vendors in 1984. Microsoft was just smarter, and more underhanded. If they got a monopoly by having strict licensing terms that was obviously to their advantage. OEMs could have choosen not to go with Microsoft, but they didn't. Because consumers wanted Microsoft, and they wanted a Microsoft machine at a low price, so the OEMs signed pacts with the devil in order to get that low price.
What I would consider is a more viable option of the customer paying extra money in order to have a dual boot system. Even if the OEM is getting the second, or third, OS for free, by making a purchasing choice the consumer is saying "I want that BeOS."
If you want just Windows, you pay the price for Windows.
If you want Be and Windows, you pay for that option. It might be just $20, but you pay. Maybe Microsoft should be forced to modify their OEM license to state that the reduced discount for selling a Windows/Be dual boot is $89. That is how much more that license of Windows will cost the OEM. So, the OEM passes that on to the consumer. That means the money, for purchases the choice to have a dual boot machine from Dell, goes straight to Microsoft. The company who probably got the customer interested in buying a computer in the first place.
Roaming Profiles, plus System Policies, works. I've used it in Corporate as well as a hospital setting.
There are user profiles and there are the user files. The user profiles contain application settings and should be placed in a share on the network and downloaded when a user logs in. The user files should also be a shared home directory and are accessed only when needed.
Users should place shortcuts to the files they need, or file folders, on their desktop, not the files themselves. This can be enforced in several ways via System Policies.
I have had great success with these methods. Most of what I have seen mentioned in this thread are legitimate concerns that often run into, but can be overcome with a little bit of research. I suggest O'Reilly's collection of books on Windows NT Administration, particularly Windows NT User Administration and Windows System Policy Editory.
All this really goes to show is that a technology such as Stealth can be overcome with other technology. The problem is that these aircraft are built with current "radar" technology in mind. There might be a revolution in radars, and a cheap one at that, which will instantly obsolete Stealth aircraft. Now you are stuck with a 100billion dollar investment and you didn't even get to bomb a single city.
This whole scenario has already been played out in Star Trek. The Romulans invented a cloaking device, the Federation stole it. Eventually the Federation learned how to send out Tachyon pulses (and tachyon webs) and how to find cloaked vessels. Once that happens, all the investment the Romulans put into the cloaking device makes them nearly useless.
The problem is not SPAM, it is people who respond to the ads and promises of SPAM. If, instead of going after the junk mailers, we proscecuted the idiots who respond to it, it will die off quickly. After all, SPAM only exists because they are getting people to respond.
If advertising on TV was shown to be 100% ineffective, guess what? No advertisements anymore (and also no TV).
Well, if the FBI sets up some bogus companies, sends some SPAM, and throws the respondents in Jail, boom, we get people afraid of the crackdown and they won't respond to any SPAM. Soon, the SPAMers quit.
Or, of course, we could just pummel the people who do respond and make them public displays of idiocy for everyone to laugh at and ridicule. That might work too.
So, it took the thousand eyes of the community to see this bug in the agreement.
If Microsoft doesn't even know all the legalese it spits out, nor keeps track of it, then how can the poor consumer? This just isn't fair.
The statements should be nice and simple. We will not share any information you give us with anybody, not now, not ever. We won't even tell ourselves. Thank you for using our service.
In NT 4.0 reskit, there's a little utility to log in remotely to a command console. This is brought forward in the Win2K reskit. This logs you in without a UI on the remote host, and you can run all your favorite command line tools. Which in NT 4.0 is useless but in Win2K is useful as you can do nearly everything via the cli (the number of cli .exe's jumped from ~80 to over 400).</i><p>
<p>Just for those who care, O'Reilly has just released it's Pocket Reference of Windows 2000 Commands. Makes learning all those things just a little bit easier.<p>
The point I was trying to make is that everyone shows the best side of the product in an ad - MS, Redhat, whoever - that's advertising.
How sad that this is accepted. One of the critical points for captilalism to work correctly is that the consumer has to be informed and know what the better product for their needs is. Modern day adverstising (and reviews) tell you little about the product in a manner you can use to make an informed purchase. Lies like this X-box show, and I'm sure just about every other advertiser uses, just makes it that much harder for a consumer, who doesn't spend a lot of time in research, to make an informed purchasing decision.
This is late in the game to post a response to your statement, but I'll do it anyway.
Children in the US are treated vastly better than children in most other parts of the world. The notion of childhood as we have it in the Western World is a relatively unique concept that has only been around since Victorian times.
In fact, you are totally misunderstanding what it means to be a child. The freedoms you gain, the rights you don't yet have. It is a distinct time period that should be enjoyed for what it is. We do not want children treated as physically smaller adults. That is what happened prior to 1600 and still happens in many places around the world. If we do what you say, then we are going backwards not forwards. Sadly, this is actually happening due to many factors, one of which is the Internet, Television, and other forms of mass media.
Read Elizabeth Essenstein's "The Printing Press as an agent of change" to get an idea as to what changed just prior to 1600, then read Neil Postman's "The Disappearance of Childhood" to learn why we should be concerned about giving children too many "rights".
Erore should mean "One Mind" according to The Languages of Tolkien's Middle-earth by Ruth S. Noel. Er is "one" and ore is "mind". I never did get into what comes first or second so maybe it means "mind one."
Nice pictures. I've had a couple of those calendars in years past, though I haven't bought one recently. Have you seen www.nightrunner.com yet? Great source for Tolkien art.
Great domain name. In the past I've thought of getting a Tolkien inspired domain, but haven't yet.
I was teasing. I know you know where the name come. It's obvious from the intelligence of your posts. I've yet to hear a Tolkien fan who actually cheered for the Orcs.
I'm a huge dwarf fan myself, so your name really jumped out. My username, Erore, is Quenyan (supposedly) and something I made up about 18 years ago to use as a magic-user in AD&D.
I love the story of Turin myself. Beleg was a favorite of mine. I still cry when Turin kills him.
You are refering to a reader needing to have a "willing suspension of disbelief." It is a requirement of all stories that are not themselves, true. You have to be willing to accept the fantastic elements of the story in order to enjoy it. But, within the framework that the story creates, these fantastic elements themselves must be logical and consistent.
For instance, in Star Trek we are asked to believe that faster than light travel is possible. Fine, I accept that. It works. They travel around and do things. Star Trek falls apart in that they do not have real societies based upon faster than light travel; societies that spread across solar systems. They supplied a techonology, warp drive, but not the realistic society in which it is used. This is inconsistent and therefore, less believable.
In the Lost Boys were are asked to believe that Vampires do exist. Fine, I suspend my lack of belief in Vampires. However, we then see a whole brood of them killed off by a bunch of amatuers. None of them was exactly a fear inspiring or difficult to kill being like Dracula. By making Vampires easy to kill, you loose credibility that they are an ancient race that has survived for hundreds of years. Heck, these little punks could have been whiped out by a cheerleader (aka Buffy).
Blade, the movie, painted a bit more realistic picture at least in the social aspects of Vampires existing. That they would be involved in business, that they would have mortals who were worshipful of them, that they would have societies and needs and wants. They were still easy to kill, but it was still much more believable than Lost Boys, or Buffy.
Tolkien asks us to accept that elves, dwarves, dragons, and magic are real. Once we accept that, everything else falls into place. His history is so complete, and so thorough, that never once do you really feel that anything utterly fantastic is happening. Things are logical and consistent. Dwarves and men trade, kingdoms rise and fall, treaties are made and broken, wars occur and peace ensues.
The Matrix is a pretty good example as well. All you need really accept is that we are plugged into a virtual world. Once you accept that, all else falls into place. It doesn't really make you think at any point, hey, that can't happen in this fantasy world, that is just too bizarre.
Don't belittle Tolkien's achievement with your English Lit argument. I know you don't mean too, but it comes across that way.
Baruk Khazâd! Khazâd aimênu!
Hah, hah. Seriously, good post; bad name.
It is difficult to have a battle of wits with an unarmed man. I'm not meaning that personally, but you do not have a good grasp of the material.
You are wrong. Gandalf, Elrond, Aragorn, Galadriel all refuse the ring because they fear that they will succomb to it's power. Galadriel's temptation is the most elegant and complete description of this temptation. The Council of Elrond provides the background. Frodo knew very well the burden he was bearing, and what it was capable of. That is why he offered it to Galadriel, because he saw the good she could do with it; she saw the evil.
Sauron did not copy the skills of Gandalf, Elrond, or Galadriel. The elven rings were made by Celebrimbor (grandson of Feanor the greatest elven smith ever) and Sauron never touched them. However, since their construction was dependent upon ring lore which Sauron revealed to Celebrimbor, they were still slaves to the One Ring.
The Elves were not the supreme race on earth. You seem convinced of that and I don't understand why. Read the Silmarillion, find out why the Elves were glad for the arrival of the Edain (men) into Beleriand because they were a hardy race and able to keep watch on Morgoth (Sauron's mentor; think Emperor to Sauron's Darth Vader) in the extreme cold where the elves would not go for long. Read about how the dwarves were the only ones to withstand the onslaught of the Father of Dragons, Glaurung, while the elves fled. Find out about Turin Turambar who slew Glaurung, and Hurin his father, the greatest warrior to ever live, who defended the retreat of the elves during the 5th battle and was the last on the field that day, killing 70 trolls as he hacked through the ranks of the bodyguard of the Lord of Balrogs.
The Wise did know of Hobbits. Gandalf had taken an interest in them for many years and long studied them. The Dunedain, the survivors of the ancient kingdom of Arthedain (of which Aragorn was chief), had long guarded the Shire and kept watch on the hobbits. Bilbo had adventures, had carried the ring, and he was known and loved by elves, dwarves, and men. He had found the One Ring, saved the dwarves, helped bring about the downfall of the great dragon Smaug, and indirectly helped bring Elves, men, dwarves, and eagles together to wipe out a large portion of the goblins in that area of the world. Bilbo legitimized hobbits like no other. The Wise knew of hobbits.
Two lesser hobbits? I assume you mean Merry and Pippin. The two hobbits who raised the Ents to take action and destroy Saruman's war machine? The hobbits who became knights of two of the most powerful kingdoms of men? The hobbits who helped with the killing of the Chief of the Nazgul, who helped recover the Shire from Saruman's clutches, who sat exposed to the will of Sauron himself through the palantir and resisted as even Saruman could not?
Gandalf does not just ride in to save the day. He sacrificed himself against the Balrog, yes. If not him, Aragorn, or Boromir, or Legolas would have. He did not lead the Hourns to Helm's Deep, they came because of their hatred of orcs, they were mustered by the Ents, who were roused to fight by Treebeard, who was convinced by the two hobbits you discounted. Gandalf was not a deux ex machina, as you would have him be. His appearances and arrival make good sense. Did he save the hobbits from Old Man Willow? The Barrow Wights? Bree? Weathertop? Shelob's Lair? Cirith Ungol? No, he did not. Did he seize an opportunity to direct the eagles to the rescue of Frodo and Sam once the ring had been destroyed? Yes, he is intelligent and knew what was happening.
The Lord of the Rings is not a children's story in the sense that you mean it. It is high fantasy, epic, dark, glorious, and real. Many people hold that themes get repeated, and the same is true for LotR. Tolkien was a professor of Anglo-Saxon literature and he drew upon many stories, names, legends, etc to create his work. In fact, he did such a good job, that Tolkien's very complete fantasy world helps a modern reader better understand such works as Beawulf, King Arthur, and the Ring Cycle. It can however, be enjoyed by children and adults.
Boromir was not a weak human. In fact, he is a typical man. Strong, capable, and frustrated that he can not exercise his will (which in his heart he believes to be pure) for the good of everyone. He was strong in that he realized his errors and short comings. Boromir is everyman in a very real way.
There are very good reasons why the Lord of the Rings is a book/books that appears at the top of every most influential books list. I'm sorry that you are missing them.
In later years a Tolkein-groupie approached my grandmother asking all sorts of questions about Mrs Tolkein, her theory being that Galadriel was based on her.
Tolkien imagined his wife more as Luthien, the most beautiful woman to have ever lived. Read about her in the story of Beren and Luthien in the Silmarillion. A love so strong that it defied the gods and death itself. In fact, John's and Edith's tombstones read:
EDITH MARY TOLKIEN LUTHIEN 1889-1971JOHN RONALD REUEL TOLKIEN BEREN 1892-1973
Why? The plot! It simply didn't make sense. Here was a ring, that could determine the fate of the entire world. And who is assigned to go to the land of Mordor and destroy it? A moronic hobbit who has never been more than a few miles away from his house! OK, I am sort of convinced of the need for secrecy and the fact that they couldn't send an army to do the task, but a hobbit??
I think Tolkien handled this quite well actually. A few things come to mind:
You are making the incorrect assumption that elves are superior to hobbits. As the books point out, Frodo did what an elf probably could not, he resisted temptation. Immortality, good looks, and perfect health do not a superior person make.
I'm sorry that you didn't enjoy the book the second time around. I did. And the 10th as well. There is a depth to Tolkien's works that cannot be found in any other Fantasy writing.
His best works, to me, are the stories of the Silmarillion, published after his death and edited by his son. Check it out sometime.
Scenario: You've setup your own machine and only you know root. You get fired. How will they get to your data?
Scenario: Corporate wide they decide to deploy a new application that requires Windows on all PCs. Something they thought they had. They get to your machine and find out that it doesn't have windows. They also find that you have spent the last two years coding custom utilities that will not work on Windows. What do they do? They need you to use those utilities, they also need you to use the custom application. What if 5% of the workers fall into the same boat.
Point being, don't sneak, ask. IS should be root on your machine, and IS should know what OS you are running and why.
Article II, Section 1, Clause 3 to be more precise.
Also, if you will read in that same clause, the Vice-President is the Nominee who receives the secondmost votes. Why doesn't that happen anymore? It used to be that Vice-Presidents might actually be of different parties than the President.
Read Article V to find out about the Amendment process. Which, if a change to the Constitution is needed, this is how it will be done. So, your answer to my query is really silly. Obviously what I am talking about is a change to our system of goverment.
Such as what happened in the 12th Ammendment when the election process was changed and you specifically voted for Vice-President and people actually started running for that position.
Call me quirky, but I have to ask:
If a Presidential Nominee receives 51% of the popular vote(assuming there are only two candidates to vote on), but only 10% of the eligible voters actually voted...can you honestly say we have a new President that the citizens of our country actually want?
Why are voters so apathetic? Is it because they assume things will just keep on working regardless of their single vote? Is it because a single vote seems to do so little in light of the massive sway special interest groups seem to have with their block voting? Is it because they are truly dismayed that a nation as great as America can only produce such pitiful Presidential Nominees?
I say that a Presidential Nominee cannot be President until at least 50% of eligible voters actually vote. Truthfully the percentage should be higher. If a Nominee cannot gather enough interest in themselves or their platform to get more voters to turn out, then we just shouldn't have a new President until they can.
I can respond to this, since I just sat in on a class at which the two guest speakers(FBI guys with the suits to prove it), who are very high up in the FBI Carnivore and Encryption programs, spoke about this very topic.
;-)I saw version 1.3.4 I believe, and 2.0 is being worked on. The speaker stated that when they come to install Carnivore, the ISP is given the option of using software they provide and trust in place of Carnivore if such software can meet the demands of the court order. Most ISPs will not want to do this because they will then be reponsible for testifying in court about the evidence collection methods.
1) Criminals are dumb. One speaker relayed conversations he heard through wire taps in which one caller told another caller to keep his voice down the Feds might be listening.
2) The FBI wants all commercial encryption software to use recoverable means. Not by some secret backdoor that only the government posseses, but one that a dis-interested third party can use when the Feds have obtained the necessary court order to do so.
3) Your question will then be, why should criminals use software with built in recoverable means. See #1. Criminals are stupid and will use methods that are easily available to them.
4) The NSA will not get involved in Carnivore. The purpose of the FBI is to collect evidence that can be used in a court of law. If the NSA is involved, then they will be forced to reveal that they had the ability to crack this encryption or that bit strength. Doing so relates back your very own statement that you want to keep your methods a secret. If the NSA is known to have an ability, then the people they spy on will change their methods. That is because the NSA actually has to deal with Intelligence (gent) operations, not stupid criminals.
5) The FBI only performed some 350 wiretaps last year. Combined nationwide with local authorities, state, and Federal, only some 1320 were done. To date, only 25 Carnivore installs have been done. That is going back 2 years nearly. The majority of wiretaps are for Drug cases, and the majority do not amount to any evidence that can be used for a conviction. I could not get clear information on how useful the 25 Carnivore installs have been.
6) Carnivore runs on Windows NT. They have a team of engineers whose sole purpose is to worry about the security. I think they spend the day looking at microsoft.com and hoping they have downloaded all patches.
7) I asked specifically about the use of Open Source programs in relation to # 6. The speaker waffled and did not seem to like the idea of Open Source for fear that known methods will lead to criminals using methods for evasion. Which does not seem to tie in at all with the dumb criminal theory the other speaker insisted upon. Instead, they would like to see a Commercial vendor make a product they could use, and that the methods of collection (how to track a dynamic IP assignment)
8) Criminals aren't all that stupid all the time. The biggest and the baddest will be quite smart and will use smart methods. Since these are some of the ones we want to catch the most badly, they will not use recoverable encryption either on the telephone or over the Net and Carnivore and wiretaps will do no good in the investigation.
9) I forgot what I was talking about.
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. A Cobalt Cube can server up to 10 million objects a day, meaning files, e-mail, and web pages. So, if it was web only, that little puppy with just 16MB of RAM and Kernal 2.0.x will outperform the Dells. And it is cute too.
Remember how Word '97 couldn't read some files from earlier Word versions? If you wanted to read '97 files you had to update. Whether you wanted to or not or needed to or not.
I certainly do not remember this because what you state is FALSE
Word 97 was perfectly capable of reading earlier versions of Word files. Earlier versions of Word could not necessarily read Word 97 files, that is what happens when file formats are upgraded. Other software programs have done this. This was documented and announced when Office 97 came out.
The complaint was this, that when you were working with Word 97 and choose to save as a Word 95, it did not save it in true .doc format (binary compatible). Instead, the output was a Rich Text Format, which is not as "robust" as 95 format (ie 6.0). Microsoft goofed, admitted it, and released a binary level converter that would save as true Word 95 docs.
Also, Microsoft released a free Word 97 viewer so users of earlier version could view and print. Also, they released an add-on to Word 95 so that owners could open Word 97 docs and modify them, even if formatting features of the new version were lost if there was not a compatible feature in the 95 version.
More than fair for them to release these freebies. The stink was that they did not inform the user that the Save As command in 97 was RTF.
Get your facts straight. People always complain about the lies MS or others say about Linux and Open Source/Free Software, well make sure you don't spread lies about MS as well. Damn them for what they do, not what you have a vague rememberance of what they might have done. And telling someone who sends you a file, you cannot read it in the format sent is VALID to do. Linux users say it all the time. If they want to communicate to you, they will.
Gimme a break Mr Upsilon. If you honestly believe that technological advances do not have an impact upon society or the individual then you must have already succumed to the mind control prevalent in the US that all techonology is neutral, it is how you use it.
What do bigger and better guns get us but bigger and bloodier wars? What does our total dependence upon the automobile get us but a war in the Middle-east, high gas prices, suburban sprawl, high consumer debt to pay for it, high insurance, lawsuits, breakdown of the traditional family as children move far away, and so forth?
Technology is decidly not neutral. Like all things it has its advantages and disadvantages. It is only by carefully weighing what you will gain vs what you will lose; what society will gain vs what it will lose, can you we ever make intelligent decisions about the implementation of technology.
Sadly, this kind of discussion and consideration does not go on in the US to a large degree. And we are the poorer for it. Oh, sure, we might be more technologically advanced because of our blind acceptance, but are we better off as a person or a group of people?
Read books by Neil Postman such as Technopoly, or from others such as the Future Does Not Compute, Silicon Snake Oil, The Cult of Information; visit Steve Talbot's site on called Netfuture.
As for the cell phones...you are right, no one has a gun to their head to use it. However, they might have a job that says they must, and they might just be stuck at a debt to income ratio level that says they can't afford to switch jobs, move, or take any cut in pay. All choices they made, many of which are influenced by technology, either directly or indirectly.
You are a fool to think otherwise.
Actually, the majority of stories on Slashdot appear to be whimsical or irrelevant; at the very least very arbitrary.
But, I know what you mean.
Minor quip, Microsoft does not make Windows NT, 2000 or 9x for any other architecture except for x86. The Alpha port of NT was dropped, as was the MIPS and PowerPC before that. Windows CE runs on something I don't know what. Embedded NT...I have no idea.
The short answer is Yes, there is a connection between technology and society. The long answer is it has always been this way.
A stone became a tool in the hands of primitive man and he could use it to crush, kill, tear, shape, etc. This was technology at work and it changed primitive man's life. Made him capable of killing more effeciently so less time was spent hunting, or to say, less time was spent dying because of lack of food.
Agriculture was an invention that led to towns and cities. More food for more people led to more population growth. Technology once again affects men and helps to create society.
Writing still another advancement that led to knowledge continuing past a persons lifetime. This knowledge led to faster improvements in other areas. Society adapts to this new technology.
The Printing Press led to writing being available to everyone. The literary society is born, the Protestant Reformation occurs, scientific growth and understanding increases. Technology shapes nations.
Modern day, we have become a society who revere technology. It has upsurped the role or religion in many people's lives. It holds the promise to our future, the solutions to all of our problems, even the ones it helps to create.
Technology is not a benign thing. It has the potential for good uses, and the potential for bad uses, but either use always has consequences. A nuclear bomb can be used as a weapon of war, or as a deterrent. The deterrent would seem to be the better use, but it led to the Cold War and all the economic and social ramifications of that.
It is only natural that things happening in the realm of technology are reflected in society. Or vice versa since neither exist in a vacuum.