It would be much better for Americans to elect person that is a good leader with experience and knowledge instead of sending a "message". Electing strictly on base of skin color to "send the message" is rather stupid reverse racism and proves only that so called proponent of such election choice is a dumb idiot pretending to be intelligent.
JAM
I'm actually a Windows fan, and I don't like Linux at all, but I think this French law should be an example for every other country. Bundling software leads to anticompetitive behaviour and forces us all to pay more for software. In addition we end up with all the crapware bundled by manufacturers. I would love to be able to buy bare but brand name computer without anything preinstalled and have my own choice of what OS and what applications I want to install. It would also open up opportunity for the businesses that sell computers to offer preinstalled, customized software opackages or services of preinstalling software a la carte when customers buys new computer at their store. Competition is always good for the consumer.
JacekM
"... - when in fact the software is just a representation of the business model they have chosen. Their system design is market driven not engineering driven - and whatever they produce from this point on will be the same as all the others. Windows, OSX, Linux, Unix etc are all products of the ethos in the organizations in which they are created. "
I have to agree with this. It sheds some light, why Linux is such a user unfrielndly software. It was created by geeks instead of engineers.
VBA in Excel case is a major advantage Excel has over most competitors. For many engineers capability to write custom programs using popular programming language within the spreadsheet makes Excel the spreadsheet of choice that has no viable competition. This drives rest of the company and cooperating suppliers into the MS Office as a standard. Dropping VBA would be in case of Excel poor decision. Such spreadsheet would lose support it has between technical professionals today. On the other hand I haven't seen much use of VBA in the rest of the MS Office applications.
JAM
Software generators, such as one build into Vista are only pseudo random. They rely on clever algorithms to generate sequences that in short series seem to be random but they are not in reality. Only hardware generators based on thermal noise or some other physical random process are capable to produce true random sequences. Therefore Microsoft product has "back door" just like every other software "random" number generator. This is another anti Microsoft FUD.
I just pointed the exaggeration of California "discovery". The so called "researchers" bypassed security (I wonder how they "bypassed" seals), picked the lock and were surprised to find files stored inside in "plain text". If I would have unrestrained access to the ballot box in any country in the world, I would find out that it is "easy" to open the box (in most cases traditional boxes are locked with a cheapo Chinese made lock or none at all) and surprise, surprise find ballot box full of paper files in plain text !!! What a horror !!!. Instead of having knowledge how to reprogram BIOS all I had to do is to either use cheap eraser or throw out ballots that I don't like or if I'm more sofisticated, replace them with my own prepared copies. Electronic machine with unrestrained access is as difficult to cheat as traditional ballot box.
You obviously have no clue what does it mean to live under communist rule. Your comments are typical whining of the uneducated American young leftist that has no clue what the real world looks like. You clearly have no idea, that spying in the USA is illegal but spying on the citizen in communist China is perfectly legal and massive. You also have no clue who exactly is hold in Gitmo. Since when Arab terrorists become US citizens ? In your stupidity you obviously never heard, that in communist country their citizens are kept in thousnads for years in gulags or jails on their own soil and often executed without trial by their captors. In communist counteris corruption never had any impact on those holding power. Only in democratic country corrupted officials are losing their office. In fact you would never heard cases of corruption in communist countries. Such news are simply unwelcome and forbiden in their media. But how would you know such facts ? This would take to attend universtiy that actually teaches something like history or science instead of polictical correct propaganda and of course it would require one to use his brain.
JAM
I know three users who tried Linux and switched back to Windows exactly for the one or more reasons mentioned in the article. To give you a perspective those are the only users I know who tried Linux. The failure rate of Linux is therefore 100% from my perspective. This pretty much explains why Linux is such a failure on the free market. Linux is simply no match for ease of use of Windows and most users are not religious fanatics about M$ or LxIslam. They just want their computers to work with all their hardware and software they use every day. Childish "adventure" in trying to make hardware work or software to install by issuing barrage of mystic command line magic spells is probably fascinating for a small group of abnormal people who are finding enjoyment in self torture. Majority of users prefer to click "Install" button and then expect things to start working as expected.
I think, this is rather type of a problem that could be perfect for quantum computers. Supposedly those can apply all possible combinations at the same time and the one that works will show up itself.
But the other interesting problem with all those math based cyphers is the assumption that they are difficult to break when known mathematical knowledge is used to assess their security. Germans were doing exactly the same with their Enigma machines during WWII. According to the mathematical knowledge available to German scientists during the war, Enigma was unbreakable within the reasonable time.
Even if ignore that the this is one time incident, probability that the plane and space debris will apppear in the same point of the mentioned 5 x 5 x 5 nautical mile cube is about 1 : 10,000,000. In other words very similar to winning main prize in Lotto.
Quantum physics exists in space - time and it is a property of space. Assuming it's existence without space - time is a stretch and has little to do with science. What exactly quantum effect caused the Universe to appear with space and time created at the same time and what quantum equation in what physical continuum describes that exactly ?
JAM
Houston, we have a problem. When science produces something out of absolutely nothing it ceases to be a science and becomes a religion.
JAM
P.S. I've read somwhere that Einstein equations define time and space in relationship to matter and time cannot exist without it. Isn't then the eternity becomes just a 15 billion years or so ?
What happened to the 3km thick ice that was covering North America and Scandinavia roughly just about 18,000 years ago ? Hey thats a lot of ice to melt. Those Neandhertals must have been driving real gas guzzlers those days.
I think this must be another failure of George Bush administration. But on the other hand, why the bad boy is US administration or NASA? When the Kyoto scam was a hot topic everybody pointed fingers at US that it does not want to pay its "fair share" in "saving" the Earth. Hey. Maybe rest of the world can now step up to the responsibility and fund this asteroid search instead of just complaining? At least in this case there should be no doubt, that the whole World including every living endangered species would be the main beneficiary of the NASA efforts. Where is the UN panel on the space emptiness regarding this topic? The world can seize to exist and UN is not active on this? What is EU panel of flying rocks doing to save us? You can't blame Catholic Church this time. They kind of predicted that something like this will eventually happen, and at least they are trying to be prepared to the best of their abilities. Plus they don't belive that it is the end of everything anyway. But I don't see any scientific approach from the progressive, enlightened, moral elites of the world. Any way you measure either by population size or even by wealth, US is the minority and should not be obligated to fund the whole cost of "Saving the Planet" however small or large the cost is. Mega pop stars can organize a big music concert inside the Arizona Crater to support NASA efforts and also to feel good. Al Gore can continue his stream of Oscar winning documentaries, this time under the tile of "Inconvenient Rock" (TM):-). Union of Concerned Scientists can start immediately designing a space gun to deflect incoming doom. Think about environment. All green movements can start pressuring their governments in Asia and Europe to make them acting seriously and stepping up to the planet responsibility. For how long President Bush administration will be single-handedly saving life on Earth? This is simply unacceptable ! What if despite the cost cutting NASA manage to discover and deflect incoming rock. Bush administration will attempt to take the whole glory! We cannot allow for this to happen. There is so much work for activists on every panel outside of US government structures to do something about it.
I really hope, they will fail for whatever reason. I see the same danger here as with DRM. Photoshop might have a GIMP ersatz that might be sufficient for many ocassional users, but there are many software packages that are either commercial only or their free counterparts are not that good. The online distribution is just a first step to make it pay-per-use in the end.
JAM
Slashdot Mirror
It would be much better for Americans to elect person that is a good leader with experience and knowledge instead of sending a "message". Electing strictly on base of skin color to "send the message" is rather stupid reverse racism and proves only that so called proponent of such election choice is a dumb idiot pretending to be intelligent. JAM
I'm actually a Windows fan, and I don't like Linux at all, but I think this French law should be an example for every other country. Bundling software leads to anticompetitive behaviour and forces us all to pay more for software. In addition we end up with all the crapware bundled by manufacturers. I would love to be able to buy bare but brand name computer without anything preinstalled and have my own choice of what OS and what applications I want to install. It would also open up opportunity for the businesses that sell computers to offer preinstalled, customized software opackages or services of preinstalling software a la carte when customers buys new computer at their store. Competition is always good for the consumer. JacekM
" ... - when in fact the software is just a representation of the business model they have chosen. Their system design is market driven not engineering driven - and whatever they produce from this point on will be the same as all the others. Windows, OSX, Linux, Unix etc are all products of the ethos in the organizations in which they are created. "
I have to agree with this. It sheds some light, why Linux is such a user unfrielndly software. It was created by geeks instead of engineers.
JAM
That is exactly what you've got when Liberals are in charge. New York is a strognhold of Democratic Party.
Why I'm not surprised.
JAM
VBA in Excel case is a major advantage Excel has over most competitors. For many engineers capability to write custom programs using popular programming language within the spreadsheet makes Excel the spreadsheet of choice that has no viable competition. This drives rest of the company and cooperating suppliers into the MS Office as a standard. Dropping VBA would be in case of Excel poor decision. Such spreadsheet would lose support it has between technical professionals today. On the other hand I haven't seen much use of VBA in the rest of the MS Office applications. JAM
Software generators, such as one build into Vista are only pseudo random. They rely on clever algorithms to generate sequences that in short series seem to be random but they are not in reality. Only hardware generators based on thermal noise or some other physical random process are capable to produce true random sequences. Therefore Microsoft product has "back door" just like every other software "random" number generator. This is another anti Microsoft FUD.
JAM
I just pointed the exaggeration of California "discovery". The so called "researchers" bypassed security (I wonder how they "bypassed" seals), picked the lock and were surprised to find files stored inside in "plain text". If I would have unrestrained access to the ballot box in any country in the world, I would find out that it is "easy" to open the box (in most cases traditional boxes are locked with a cheapo Chinese made lock or none at all) and surprise, surprise find ballot box full of paper files in plain text !!! What a horror !!!. Instead of having knowledge how to reprogram BIOS all I had to do is to either use cheap eraser or throw out ballots that I don't like or if I'm more sofisticated, replace them with my own prepared copies. Electronic machine with unrestrained access is as difficult to cheat as traditional ballot box.
JAM
HB #2 pencile has a serious flaw. It is suspectible to the man in the middle with cheap eraser.
JAM
You obviously have no clue what does it mean to live under communist rule. Your comments are typical whining of the uneducated American young leftist that has no clue what the real world looks like. You clearly have no idea, that spying in the USA is illegal but spying on the citizen in communist China is perfectly legal and massive. You also have no clue who exactly is hold in Gitmo. Since when Arab terrorists become US citizens ? In your stupidity you obviously never heard, that in communist country their citizens are kept in thousnads for years in gulags or jails on their own soil and often executed without trial by their captors. In communist counteris corruption never had any impact on those holding power. Only in democratic country corrupted officials are losing their office. In fact you would never heard cases of corruption in communist countries. Such news are simply unwelcome and forbiden in their media. But how would you know such facts ? This would take to attend universtiy that actually teaches something like history or science instead of polictical correct propaganda and of course it would require one to use his brain. JAM
> they are like any other gov
This is stupid and completely untrue slogan. Communist governments are not even remotely like any democratic entity.
JAM
Could anuone, please, notify ACLU, that the Chruch of Global Warming is again attempting to create state funded religion.
JAM
I would like to point out you all from Linux church, that the hero mother considers XP to be excellent and safe product. JAM
Arent we suppos to evolve more intelligent ? JAM
Created it in the first place ?
I think you are wrong on this.
I know three users who tried Linux and switched back to Windows exactly for the one or more reasons mentioned in the article. To give you a perspective those are the only users I know who tried Linux. The failure rate of Linux is therefore 100% from my perspective. This pretty much explains why Linux is such a failure on the free market. Linux is simply no match for ease of use of Windows and most users are not religious fanatics about M$ or LxIslam. They just want their computers to work with all their hardware and software they use every day. Childish "adventure" in trying to make hardware work or software to install by issuing barrage of mystic command line magic spells is probably fascinating for a small group of abnormal people who are finding enjoyment in self torture. Majority of users prefer to click "Install" button and then expect things to start working as expected.
JAM
I think, this is rather type of a problem that could be perfect for quantum computers.
Supposedly those can apply all possible combinations at the same time and the one that works will show up itself.
But the other interesting problem with all those math based cyphers is the assumption that they are difficult to break when known mathematical knowledge is used to assess their security. Germans were doing exactly the same with their Enigma machines during WWII. According to the mathematical knowledge available to German scientists during the war, Enigma was unbreakable within the reasonable time.
JAM
Production of aluminium requires significant amount of electrical energy. JAM
Almost 2000 years ago Caligula made his favorite horse a Roman senator.
JAM
Even if ignore that the this is one time incident, probability that the plane and space debris will apppear in the same point of the mentioned 5 x 5 x 5 nautical mile cube is about 1 : 10,000,000. In other words very similar to winning main prize in Lotto.
JAM
Quantum physics exists in space - time and it is a property of space. Assuming it's existence without space - time is a stretch and has little to do with science. What exactly quantum effect caused the Universe to appear with space and time created at the same time and what quantum equation in what physical continuum describes that exactly ? JAM
Houston, we have a problem. When science produces something out of absolutely nothing it ceases to be a science and becomes a religion.
JAM
P.S. I've read somwhere that Einstein equations define time and space in relationship to matter and time cannot exist without it. Isn't then the eternity becomes just a 15 billion years or so ?
What happened to the 3km thick ice that was covering North America and Scandinavia roughly just about 18,000 years ago ? Hey thats a lot of ice to melt. Those Neandhertals must have been driving real gas guzzlers those days.
JAM
I think this must be another failure of George Bush administration. But on the other hand, why the bad boy is US administration or NASA? When the Kyoto scam was a hot topic everybody pointed fingers at US that it does not want to pay its "fair share" in "saving" the Earth. Hey. Maybe rest of the world can now step up to the responsibility and fund this asteroid search instead of just complaining? At least in this case there should be no doubt, that the whole World including every living endangered species would be the main beneficiary of the NASA efforts. Where is the UN panel on the space emptiness regarding this topic? The world can seize to exist and UN is not active on this? What is EU panel of flying rocks doing to save us? You can't blame Catholic Church this time. They kind of predicted that something like this will eventually happen, and at least they are trying to be prepared to the best of their abilities. Plus they don't belive that it is the end of everything anyway. But I don't see any scientific approach from the progressive, enlightened, moral elites of the world. Any way you measure either by population size or even by wealth, US is the minority and should not be obligated to fund the whole cost of "Saving the Planet" however small or large the cost is. Mega pop stars can organize a big music concert inside the Arizona Crater to support NASA efforts and also to feel good. Al Gore can continue his stream of Oscar winning documentaries, this time under the tile of "Inconvenient Rock" (TM) :-). Union of Concerned Scientists can start immediately designing a space gun to deflect incoming doom. Think about environment. All green movements can start pressuring their governments in Asia and Europe to make them acting seriously and stepping up to the planet responsibility. For how long President Bush administration will be single-handedly saving life on Earth? This is simply unacceptable ! What if despite the cost cutting NASA manage to discover and deflect incoming rock. Bush administration will attempt to take the whole glory! We cannot allow for this to happen. There is so much work for activists on every panel outside of US government structures to do something about it.
JAM
This is nonsens. Without Windows you are limited to small set of primitive applicaitons. JAM
I really hope, they will fail for whatever reason. I see the same danger here as with DRM. Photoshop might have a GIMP ersatz that might be sufficient for many ocassional users, but there are many software packages that are either commercial only or their free counterparts are not that good. The online distribution is just a first step to make it pay-per-use in the end. JAM