I'll tell you what it means to me - Windows XP 64-bit. I "upgraded" to Vista early in the summer, and I kept telling myself through all the headaches that I'd just wait it out until SP1. Now that that's not until next year, I've decided I'm no longer waiting. Instead, I'm switching to XP 64-bit, which appears to have a lot more driver support than the last time I tried it. There's no way I'm going to wait until Q1 2008 for a service pack that might fix my issues, especially if, according to Microsoft, service packs are less important now that Windows Update is widely used.
While you said this in jest, this is exactly what I am planning to do. I thought I'd wait until SP1 came out before deciding whether to ditch Vista or not, but there's no way I can put up with it for another several months just to wait for a SP that might fix my issues. If the pack was coming out in October, I'd wait, but next year is too long for me.
You are not in the business of making or financing motion pictures or record albums, so you have no real stake in the argument.
I have to disagree here. The legislation that is produced on behalf of MPAA and similar lobbying has real effects on many, many more people than just those who make or finance movies or music. It's one thing for an industry group to try and promote their own interests; it's something completely different when they do it at the expense of the public.
Certainly I agree with the necessity of showing respect, but on the other hand, the MPAA's representatives would do well to show some respect and attention to these students, as well - they are the generation that is growing up with torrents while Blockbuster slowly disappears. Their attitudes towards media consumption are shaping and will continue to shape the industry, whether the MPAA likes it or not.
I'm not trying to put Linux on the Pocket PC (which I believe, interestingly enough, has been done on my particular model). I just loathe the suggestion that I install Linux on my desktop when the Linux tools for Pocket PC synchronization really don't work well at all (I've tried them).
Of course, many people would respond by saying I should have bought a Palm device instead, since those Linux tools are more mature. Maybe they're right, but I like my Pocket PC too much, in terms of hardware and certain software that it runs, to have chosen something else, or to change now.
I'll see your fact check and raise you one. The 32GB limit is per page directory, that means that there is a 32GB linear *address space* but the 36GB of physical memory has been addressable by the page translation hardware since, I think, the pentium pro.
Touché. You may hereby revoke my geek license.
I've snipped the most sudden mood swing I've ever seen, I do one little bit of Linux advocacy and get a lecture on the problems Linux has - I'm not a counsellor.
Sorry, I didn't realize you were someone who actually knew what they were talking about. I just get sick of the "you should switch to Linux, it will solve all of your problems" attitude I see a lot around here.
Touché. I failed to realize that at issue were 32-bit processors with greater than 32-bit memory addressing schemes.
That said, assuming I could cram more than 4 GB in my box (motherboard limitation), would a 32-bit OS be able to address more than those 4 GB? Would I have to enable the "memory hole" or something?
What, XP can't see over 4GB on a 32 bit machine? Linux can see up to 36G (IIRC) on 32bit PC hardware.
Fact check time! 32-bit processors can directly address up to 4 GB of memory. This is a limitation of the processor architecture, and has nothing to do with the OS.
64-bit processors of course can address quite a bit more. However, that's really not even the issue here. Why would I need a 64-bit OS to see all 4 GB of memory if a 32-bit processor and OS can address up to 4 GB of memory? Because other devices have memory that needs to be directly addressable by the OS - i.e., video cards, etc. So 4 GB memory with two 256 MB video cards and other PCI devices left me with about 3 to 3.25 GB both in 32-bit Windows and in 32-bit Linux.
Perhaps you should have switched to Linux some time ago. Oh yeah, Linux has been running 64 bit on PC hardware for a good few years.
For the record, when I was playing around with a 64-bit Linux on that machine, it had a faulty memory module that for whatever reason, Linux was more sensitive to. I never got through an installation process without some kind of weird error. I have since replaced the module. However, no, I'm not switching to Linux on this machine. I have a nice little MythTV box, so I'd say I know a little about Linux, but futzing about with xorg.conf for hours to get my triple-monitor setup working is not my idea of fun. That's not to say it "just works" in Windows, but it "doesn't just work" in Windows a lot faster than it "doesn't just work" in Linux. Oh, and I have a Pocket PC, which does just work in Windows, and barely works at all, at least not without a lot of pain, in Linux.
THAT's why I haven't "switched to Linux some time ago." And let me assure you, now that I've solved half the problems I'm having with Vista 64-bit, I'm sure as hell not going to switch to Linux and have to solve a whole other set of problems.
Windows XP x64 Edition already did that and probably isn't a PITA as much.
I tried XP x64 about a year and a half ago, and at that point, the lack of drivers (at least for my hardware) made it unusable. I know for a fact that that situation has improved by now, because as I was downloading drivers for Vista, I noticed the XP x64 driver that didn't exist at that time right beside the Vista driver. However, I missed the trade-in for XP to XP x64, and I'm not going to shell out the cash for it to get a legal copy. Also, Vista is easier to install with third-party drivers than XP (you can use USB sticks or CDs as sources, instead of only floppies, or slipstreaming). I got Vista Business through MSDN-AA as well (interesting - I will have to see if the N version is available at my school).
I feel his pain. Vista has been a pretty big headache for me since I first installed it earlier this summer. I still can't get the machine to suspend properly, my Bluetooth dongle sort of works, sometimes the network adapters require a reboot before they will connect...
However, quite a few problems have been fixed in the past few months, at least for me. The slow file copy/move thing seems to have disappeared; after a few driver updates, no more BSOD or random restarts. Program compatibility is still an issue, and I'm going to need to keep updating drivers, because everything seems like it could use a little more work. Really, though, there isn't much advantage over XP. I'm mainly staying with Vista for the better multiple-monitor support, and the 64-bitness (including finally seeing all 4 GB RAM).
You don't go to a lot of concerts, do you? At many large concerts, they'll search your bag (never mind x-raying it), and take any water bottle or other drinkables.
I do go to concerts, but not the sort where they serve drinks.
The problem here is selective attention. You quoted the one case where a police officer noticed someone acting "suspiciously" and ended up being right. You didn't quote the 1000 other cases everywhere around the country - not just in airports - where police bother someone who they think acts suspiciously and end up as a false alert.
First of all, these are not police, these are TSA officers. They work in airports, the article is about airports, and our discussion is about airports. It's not as if these people are walking around on every street, stopping and questioning whomever they please. Third, when you enter an airport, like it or not, you WILL be put under a greater level of scrutiny than in many other places. There aren't many other places where you're asked to discard you water bottle, take off your shoes, and have your bag X-rayed before you'll be let in. Finally, this appears to be a fairly new program, and the writer of TFA doesn't actually provide any instances of real people encountering problems with these officers.
If anyone's guilty of selective attention, it's the writer of the TFA, and you. I know it's popular/. groupthink to automatically lump any kind of government surveillance into the Orwellian category, but stop and think for a minute about all the reports of people who have been observed "acting erratically" before something bad happens. Oh, and there's the fact that, as my article shows, a man with a gun and bullets was stopped in the airport thanks to this kind of program, or a very similar one. I very much doubt that someone who looks like they're having a bad day isn't going to be allowed on a plane. If that happens, maybe the writer has a case. On the other hand, trying to avoid causing a scene at the airport has been good advice long before this program.
For a different take on (what I assume is) the same program, read this article. I think the writer of TFA may be overreacting - in this article, an officer simply noticed someone acting suspiciously, and it turned out that he was carrying a 9 mm handgun and thirty rounds without a permit. No trick, no "micro-expressions", just good old-fashioned alertness.
I recently spent a few months in France, where, IIRC, the equivalent of high school students choose between two or three broad tracks - i.e., Humanities, Sciences/Maths, or Vocational. The track that they choose determines what specialization they may have in the university. I believe they may switch tracks partway through high school, but I've heard that it is very difficult to switch majors in college, or to major in something that required a different track than the one you chose. As an American, I thought that this was rather constricting - I changed majors once before attending my first class in college, and also about a year and a half into college. However, I suppose these tracks are broad enough for them that they don't have too much danger of overspecializing. Job mobility in France is not like it is in the US, so I don't think you will find too many people changing careers to something dramatically different.
Whether or not VMWare violates Linux copyrights, the mere fact that this is being discussed may add to the perception of the GPL as a "viral" license, and steer developers/businesses away from using Linux and other GPL software in their products.
And though "The FCC was (and probably still is) managed for the benefit of the companies and their lobbyists, not for you and me," that makes it even less free-market, not more.
You've hit the nail on the head there. The issue is not a choice between a "free market" or a market with regulation - you can't have a truly free market without regulation, unless by "free" you mean a market with no checks on anti-competitive practices or any of the other equally damaging practices that are only natural for private business to pursue. The problem is when the regulations are basically set by the very entities that are supposed to be regulated!
(Good) regulation is essential, and is what keeps snake oil off the pharmacy shelves, among other things, Vioxx notwithstanding. If only our government actually wrote the regulations in the public interest, instead of as a corporate welfare program, we'd be a lot better off.
DRM is merely the latest in a monopoly non free market that has been prevalent since government got created and got involved in regulating the market.
Hold on there. Government regulation doesn't equate to monopolistic players in the free market; government regulation is what prevents those monopolies from coming into existence in the first place. A market without regulation is what enables monopolies to exist. In order to ensure a truly free, competitive market, the government must engage in regulation, to counter the natural monopolistic tendencies of private actors.
That's not to say that regulation can't be used to create or prop up monopolies, but the answer isn't to get rid of regulation completely. The problem today is that our politicians are in bed with big business, and they no longer regulate in the public interest (or at all).
If there's a way to add TV tuner capability to it (I guess it would have to be via USB), I was thinking ultra-small MythTV box. It's certainly powerful enough for SD content, and I like the MPEG2/4 hardware decoding.
Sure, anyone who says they wouldn't share is probably lying, but that's not the point. The digital world has already turned certain aspects of our economy upside-down, and it has the potential to make even more changes. Its fundamental nature is to eliminate scarcity, and since so much of our current economy is based on scarcity, current business models don't function well in the digital world.
DRM is an attempt to introduce scarcity into an arena where none exists. It goes against the fundamental nature of the digital world. The deeper problem, however, is reconciling our current way of doing things with this new world. How will film and music be produced when they can no longer be sold like a carton of eggs? I doubt they can continue to be produced in the same manner as they currently are - but that's not necessarily bad.
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I'll tell you what it means to me - Windows XP 64-bit. I "upgraded" to Vista early in the summer, and I kept telling myself through all the headaches that I'd just wait it out until SP1. Now that that's not until next year, I've decided I'm no longer waiting. Instead, I'm switching to XP 64-bit, which appears to have a lot more driver support than the last time I tried it. There's no way I'm going to wait until Q1 2008 for a service pack that might fix my issues, especially if, according to Microsoft, service packs are less important now that Windows Update is widely used.
While you said this in jest, this is exactly what I am planning to do. I thought I'd wait until SP1 came out before deciding whether to ditch Vista or not, but there's no way I can put up with it for another several months just to wait for a SP that might fix my issues. If the pack was coming out in October, I'd wait, but next year is too long for me.
I have to disagree here. The legislation that is produced on behalf of MPAA and similar lobbying has real effects on many, many more people than just those who make or finance movies or music. It's one thing for an industry group to try and promote their own interests; it's something completely different when they do it at the expense of the public.
Certainly I agree with the necessity of showing respect, but on the other hand, the MPAA's representatives would do well to show some respect and attention to these students, as well - they are the generation that is growing up with torrents while Blockbuster slowly disappears. Their attitudes towards media consumption are shaping and will continue to shape the industry, whether the MPAA likes it or not.
"émissions gratuites", methinks.
So is it a 10% drop or a 90% drop? The summary says 90, but you've quoted 10. I could live with one of those, though I shouldn't have to.
I'm not trying to put Linux on the Pocket PC (which I believe, interestingly enough, has been done on my particular model). I just loathe the suggestion that I install Linux on my desktop when the Linux tools for Pocket PC synchronization really don't work well at all (I've tried them).
Of course, many people would respond by saying I should have bought a Palm device instead, since those Linux tools are more mature. Maybe they're right, but I like my Pocket PC too much, in terms of hardware and certain software that it runs, to have chosen something else, or to change now.
Touché. You may hereby revoke my geek license.
Sorry, I didn't realize you were someone who actually knew what they were talking about. I just get sick of the "you should switch to Linux, it will solve all of your problems" attitude I see a lot around here.
Including yours truly. Touché.
Touché. I failed to realize that at issue were 32-bit processors with greater than 32-bit memory addressing schemes.
That said, assuming I could cram more than 4 GB in my box (motherboard limitation), would a 32-bit OS be able to address more than those 4 GB? Would I have to enable the "memory hole" or something?
Fact check time! 32-bit processors can directly address up to 4 GB of memory. This is a limitation of the processor architecture, and has nothing to do with the OS.
64-bit processors of course can address quite a bit more. However, that's really not even the issue here. Why would I need a 64-bit OS to see all 4 GB of memory if a 32-bit processor and OS can address up to 4 GB of memory? Because other devices have memory that needs to be directly addressable by the OS - i.e., video cards, etc. So 4 GB memory with two 256 MB video cards and other PCI devices left me with about 3 to 3.25 GB both in 32-bit Windows and in 32-bit Linux.
For the record, when I was playing around with a 64-bit Linux on that machine, it had a faulty memory module that for whatever reason, Linux was more sensitive to. I never got through an installation process without some kind of weird error. I have since replaced the module. However, no, I'm not switching to Linux on this machine. I have a nice little MythTV box, so I'd say I know a little about Linux, but futzing about with xorg.conf for hours to get my triple-monitor setup working is not my idea of fun. That's not to say it "just works" in Windows, but it "doesn't just work" in Windows a lot faster than it "doesn't just work" in Linux. Oh, and I have a Pocket PC, which does just work in Windows, and barely works at all, at least not without a lot of pain, in Linux.
THAT's why I haven't "switched to Linux some time ago." And let me assure you, now that I've solved half the problems I'm having with Vista 64-bit, I'm sure as hell not going to switch to Linux and have to solve a whole other set of problems.
Yeah, that sucks. I was lucky enough not to have to pay for my copy (got it through a school program), and boy am I glad that was the case.
I feel his pain. Vista has been a pretty big headache for me since I first installed it earlier this summer. I still can't get the machine to suspend properly, my Bluetooth dongle sort of works, sometimes the network adapters require a reboot before they will connect...
However, quite a few problems have been fixed in the past few months, at least for me. The slow file copy/move thing seems to have disappeared; after a few driver updates, no more BSOD or random restarts. Program compatibility is still an issue, and I'm going to need to keep updating drivers, because everything seems like it could use a little more work. Really, though, there isn't much advantage over XP. I'm mainly staying with Vista for the better multiple-monitor support, and the 64-bitness (including finally seeing all 4 GB RAM).
First of all, these are not police, these are TSA officers. They work in airports, the article is about airports, and our discussion is about airports. It's not as if these people are walking around on every street, stopping and questioning whomever they please. Third, when you enter an airport, like it or not, you WILL be put under a greater level of scrutiny than in many other places. There aren't many other places where you're asked to discard you water bottle, take off your shoes, and have your bag X-rayed before you'll be let in. Finally, this appears to be a fairly new program, and the writer of TFA doesn't actually provide any instances of real people encountering problems with these officers.
If anyone's guilty of selective attention, it's the writer of the TFA, and you. I know it's popular /. groupthink to automatically lump any kind of government surveillance into the Orwellian category, but stop and think for a minute about all the reports of people who have been observed "acting erratically" before something bad happens. Oh, and there's the fact that, as my article shows, a man with a gun and bullets was stopped in the airport thanks to this kind of program, or a very similar one. I very much doubt that someone who looks like they're having a bad day isn't going to be allowed on a plane. If that happens, maybe the writer has a case. On the other hand, trying to avoid causing a scene at the airport has been good advice long before this program.
For a different take on (what I assume is) the same program, read this article. I think the writer of TFA may be overreacting - in this article, an officer simply noticed someone acting suspiciously, and it turned out that he was carrying a 9 mm handgun and thirty rounds without a permit. No trick, no "micro-expressions", just good old-fashioned alertness.
Ironic - he could have put an ad on that site and gotten a lot of revenue from the same traffic that's overwhelming him right now.
I recently spent a few months in France, where, IIRC, the equivalent of high school students choose between two or three broad tracks - i.e., Humanities, Sciences/Maths, or Vocational. The track that they choose determines what specialization they may have in the university. I believe they may switch tracks partway through high school, but I've heard that it is very difficult to switch majors in college, or to major in something that required a different track than the one you chose. As an American, I thought that this was rather constricting - I changed majors once before attending my first class in college, and also about a year and a half into college. However, I suppose these tracks are broad enough for them that they don't have too much danger of overspecializing. Job mobility in France is not like it is in the US, so I don't think you will find too many people changing careers to something dramatically different.
Whether or not VMWare violates Linux copyrights, the mere fact that this is being discussed may add to the perception of the GPL as a "viral" license, and steer developers/businesses away from using Linux and other GPL software in their products.
You've hit the nail on the head there. The issue is not a choice between a "free market" or a market with regulation - you can't have a truly free market without regulation, unless by "free" you mean a market with no checks on anti-competitive practices or any of the other equally damaging practices that are only natural for private business to pursue. The problem is when the regulations are basically set by the very entities that are supposed to be regulated!
(Good) regulation is essential, and is what keeps snake oil off the pharmacy shelves, among other things, Vioxx notwithstanding. If only our government actually wrote the regulations in the public interest, instead of as a corporate welfare program, we'd be a lot better off.
So that's why New Yorkers sound so funny!
I don't have to work in the intelligence community to tell you that a leaking carrier pigeon is never good.
Hold on there. Government regulation doesn't equate to monopolistic players in the free market; government regulation is what prevents those monopolies from coming into existence in the first place. A market without regulation is what enables monopolies to exist. In order to ensure a truly free, competitive market, the government must engage in regulation, to counter the natural monopolistic tendencies of private actors.
That's not to say that regulation can't be used to create or prop up monopolies, but the answer isn't to get rid of regulation completely. The problem today is that our politicians are in bed with big business, and they no longer regulate in the public interest (or at all).
If there's a way to add TV tuner capability to it (I guess it would have to be via USB), I was thinking ultra-small MythTV box. It's certainly powerful enough for SD content, and I like the MPEG2/4 hardware decoding.
Sure, anyone who says they wouldn't share is probably lying, but that's not the point. The digital world has already turned certain aspects of our economy upside-down, and it has the potential to make even more changes. Its fundamental nature is to eliminate scarcity, and since so much of our current economy is based on scarcity, current business models don't function well in the digital world.
DRM is an attempt to introduce scarcity into an arena where none exists. It goes against the fundamental nature of the digital world. The deeper problem, however, is reconciling our current way of doing things with this new world. How will film and music be produced when they can no longer be sold like a carton of eggs? I doubt they can continue to be produced in the same manner as they currently are - but that's not necessarily bad.