Apple has been doing a bunch of things lately that make me wonder if they are really trying to be our friends. Look, Mac OS X will have a strong Unix background, but with Apples own additions (QT4). Perhaps they want OS X to be the only Unix that runs well on there hardware. Why?
As we all know, apple is a hardware company which [Mostly] makes money from selling boxes, not licenses. Linux is a strange product in that it doesn t promote one form of hardware over another. Linux is not more helpful for one group then it is for another. (I can run the same dist on Alpha, Sparc, i386, and perhaps PPC) If I don't need apple hardware to run my programs, I have less reasons to use it. In many ways, Linux can hurt Apple more then MS, since the same people who like the Tech Aspects of Mac OS X could get similar results with different hardware. If there was the same Linux under PPC and Alpha, what incentive do I have to buy Mac?.
This might or might not be the reason. I would just suggest we take Apple with the same grain of salt we take Sun.
What are the reasons for not putting in XFree86 4.0? I am sure they had good reasons, but what are they exactly? Should I (or others) hold off before download source/RPMs?
I am a music DJ at a local radio station. I think we use MP3s in a way the helps everyone. The station has very limited funding, so we tend to have a smaller collection of CDs that Labels have donated. Most DJ bring a lot of there own music. It is well known that the way many small/local bands get known is through radio like this. With MP3s, we now have the ability to play a wider verity of this music, and thus, more people get heard. The fact is, most Djs Don t have the personal funds to go out and buy somany CDs themselves.
A few weeks ago I (among others) install a computer in the studio for the purpose of playing MP3s. With this machine, a lot of a smaller/unknown people will get airplay. Thus, they will get more record sales and more people will know of them.
That is perhaps the only way I can think of Napster greatly helping smaller bands and labels as well as the entire music community. [Oh, I should add that I play experimental/avant Guard and 20th Cent. Classical. I can t find a single MP3 on Napster ofwhat I normally play. Perhaps this is why certain labels/composers are somewhat protected from the mp3 rush.]
It makes one wonder how they came to these predictions of the cash cow running dry for so many companies. On one hand, people have been predicting that these companies would running out of cash any day now for some time. Despite what it might seem like, not many of these companies are running in the black, nor have they ever been. A few years ago everyone thought Amazon was a goner when there stock price split in two over one day.
So how dose barron's know this? Jupiter Communications, the foremost provider in technology statistics and predictions, claimed that AOL's user base would cap at 6ish million a few years ago. Now AOL has well over 10 million user. What this goes to show is that even the best are basically taking guesses at things like this. In Barrons case, I would tend to agree that it is a good guess. It is just important to remember that this prediction is not all that new, and that.com's have a nasty ability to stay alive for another day. Well, that is what I think of that.
For thoese of you too lazy to read the artical, I found this quote by a Microsoft attorney to be rather informative:
""There is clear language in this law that says if the consumer buys some software, sees the agreement and doesn't like the deal, they can get their money back," said Bob Gomulkiewicz, a senior corporate attorney for Microsoft. "UCITA actually makes that law."
How many of us baught a new computer and didn't like the MS software included or the "deal"? How many of the same people were easly able to get a refund for that software?
I would like to see the same questions asked to Linux and Mac users about there systems. I don't think the numbers would be shocking, it would be the differance between the percents of MS and everyone else. It means something when MS is 30% behind other OSs in user loyalty/enjoyment. There is only so much MS can FUDge.
I don't think they have a choice. Sure, almost Everyone at the NSA has some sort of security clearance, but it would be impossible to keep this locked up. If there was such a huge network failure as CNN seems to think, a lot of people simply have nothing to do at work. They go home. Why is everyone going home someone might ask?
The NSA is good at keeping things secure, but I drought they would keep something this big "lock up". Besides the state of the system is unimportant. What's important is what it is used for. You don't see them talking about that to CNN.
Well, this makes me really mad. WFMU is a good [public] free form radio station, one of the few in the country. I give them money so that they can keep up the good work. In return, they pay to have Yahoo(!) have a real feed so we can listen in Boston. When yahoo announced the switch, I was really mad. I was going to lose what I really love.
Now it turn out that it was a Hoax designed to help yahoo reduce costs. I am so very sorry for yahoo and there high costs (HA!) but I am getting really mad they they played around with loyal listers to solve there problum. Stressing out loyal listers is not the way to solve problums. Yahoo could have solved this problum a number of way, with this being the worst.
Personaly, I hope WFMU gets a differnt stream like they were planning on when this whole "problum" broke out. I don't like dealing with anyone who throws around the "consumer" when dealing with B to B problums. Becides, if yahoo really wanted to decrese costs *and* get more listeners, they only need to switch to the FREE streaming mp3 format.
Not Really. BU is Boston University, a unrelated school in Boston, across the river from MIT. Although it is somewhat near the school with the dead server, we at BU have absolutly nothing to do with there server, or anything else for that matter. Yet.
First, let me disspell the rumor that this is a rumor. It's not. I don't work at Yahoo but a very trustworthy person at a Non-profit radio station has started his own battle agianst this.
For thoese of you who think it is not a big deal, your wrong. Broadcast.com is one of the few places were you can find non-profit radio programming. These stations have *no* money to buy there own T3s and deserve to reach the most people. Once Yahoo makes this switch, we will lose this content.
If MS made Media Player on all platforms, it would not be a big deal. The fact that MS has claimed that the streaming feature in it's Media Player would be open-protcal for years and still has yet to show some docs means something. The fact that we will be losing a lot of good, imporant content means something. Maybe this will encourage someone to reverse the Media Player and come out with a Open player, but I don't think so. We need to prevent MS from claiming the entire streaming Media world, becuase that makes it that much easyer for the rest of the parts of the internet. Don't take this lightly.
There is something to say about *not* boycotting sites like imdb. Internet Movie Data Base was started as a "open" service for the people. We can send a good message to Amzn if we keep visiting imdb but not buying anything from the Amazon links (Or clicking them). Writting a letter explaining how you support open collections of information, but not silly patents will only help. If they notice they are still getting just as many hits, but half as many sales, they might see how people really are concerned with the actions of a site.
This is the time when we as community can use the power of slashdot and our collective voices.
Everyone who agrees with RMS (To some degree) should send a nice, well thought out, letter to Amazon explaining your problems with there recent actions. Lets face it, the slashdot affect is really powerful. A few people here and there complained to fox when the blocked non-windows people, but fox actually did something when all of us wrote letters all at once.
Keep in mind, these letters CAN NOT BE FLAMES! That would only make things worst. Instead they must be claim, polite and well thought out. If you could not tell, I strongly agree with RMS on this one. We can't let silly patents like this ruin everything people on the internet have enjoyed for so many years.
The nice thing about Emacs/W3 is that you *don't* need to use it. Emacs runs fine without it, and fine with it. IMHO this is the way all browers should try to be. Much like the Gimp and XMMS, have the browers be not much more then a base to hold the "Plug-ins". This way people won't have 10meg downloads and you could customize it for the system you use. Anyway....
Lets not discredit opera so soon. Yes, they are not open source, but Mozilla still needs a lot of work and Netscape crashes more then a test car. Opera *is* working on Linux actively (I check every so often) and they are coming up with some good products. Before, they had a few screen shots of a text based browser that can do layout much better then lynx. Personally, I will try their browser until I feel Mozilla is stable and small, which I don't feel right now.
I don't think that this should have been posted as a story, as it s not news for nerds. I also don t think we should all team upand criticize something for not being open or free, when there is no free & stable alternative yet. Just my 2 yen.
Everyone should reread the article and realize what is happening. Microsoft knows they can't convince a school like MIT to switch to NT, and they don't want to. Instead MS is buying the rights to some of the best minds in the US. Look, MIT is extremely innovative, and often gives there good idea's away for free, under GPLish terms. Microsoft s plan is to get the info quicklyand for free, while others can only dream of hiring MIT grads. They then can then mold the technology however they want. Don't let this fool you. MS is only in this to get really good code, free and fast.
Who uses windows? At MIT, MS doesn t really care. They want theidea's, not to make every student hooked on NT. Don't get me wrong - they want kids hooked on windows, but the kids they areafter are a *long* way from college.
For ports, they list 4 USBs and a serial, but no parallel. When they take you to the printer order page, the specs on the printer say it comes with a parallel printer cable. Anyone else see the problem?
I was one of the people who first started complaining that they update it yesterday. My experiences are that it is much better then the previous version, with the exception of the CPU usage. I have found that on older encoded clips, there is the problem. On newer G2 stuff, there still is high CPU, but not 100%. It is starting to look like xanime. It's not open source (A very bad things) but it can handle several sound formats and a few other things xanime can't. If I already have Realplayer open, why waste time & mem opening another program.
About the CPU problem. I responded to the guy about my experiences and he very quickly got back. He seemed surprised and eager to fix the problem. I think if we keep sending bug reports to these people (even if they are known bugs) then they will fix the package in a more timely manner.
This would be a perfect time to re-introduce the netwinder for something similar. If priced right, it would solve a lot of problems. The principal could be the same as the Sun Boxen, but you would also be able to introduce more powerful computing (For those who want it) and you would not become a "one solution" school. All the netwinder people would need to do is add a card reader, and slash the price in half. This would be a better solution for both the schools and the kids.
I have been giving this problum lots of thaught and I think that I have a solution.
In addition to the main coment page we have two others, AC and troll-trash. When someone posts an AC, the post automaticly goes to the AC list, one seprate from the main comment page. The AC list is just a holding place for comments. Moderators can then send the AC posts to one of two places. If the post is good, it goes onto the main comment page, and is treated like any other comment. If it's a troll it gets sent to the troll-trash list. Keep in mind that moderators do not lose points then moving AC posts in the AC list. When the post is put on the main comment page, then it can be moved up or down with the normal point system. Once in the trash, it can still be moved to the main comment page if another moderator sees fit. This is a check and balence of there powers. The AC and Troll-trash lists are publicly viewable, but seperatly from the main comment section. One exception to the rule is an AC post that is longer then a few lines, and the charters are differant. (Real words) Then it would go directly to the main comment page.
This may seem more confusing then it is. The idea is simple. Everyone can post, and everyone has the oppertunity to view messages that would be trash. They just don't come up with the comment page like normal. This should make both the trolls and the good posters happy people.
I am not compleatly sure how MS Crypto works, so I am asking this not as flame bait. Is MS saying in this press release that the goverment dose not have keys ("Back doors"), but MS dose? Someone please clairfy this. Thanks
It is too bad that most of us in school in this area are too busy with classes and other requirements to even apply. I can walk to there offices in about 10 min, but I would be walking away from my classes. College is already a job an a half, without the fun of administrating the servers of one of the most important open source groups on earth.
I almost always agree with the Linux masses, but this time I agree with the SEC. They set up a policy that is designed to prevent people from doing something *really* stupid. It is a good policy, and I imagine that it has save a good amount of people from losing thousands of dollars. Most linux users (That I know at least) know very little about the stock market, especially IPOs. These people should gain a little more experience before investing in one of the most risky transactions. I think that E*trade was wrong to go back and let any redhat letter person invest in the IPO, without trading experience. Redhat should have made this clear in their letter, but then again, no one gets a piece of misleading mail - do they?
Ok. Musicblvd was one of the better music stores on the web, which merged with one not so good. That one then merged with one even worst. Surplus.com direct was a cool company that had decent deals on old parts. They then merged with a company that put an end to there free stuff. Finally, I turn to onsale, which has good shipping and prices, only to find that they merged with a poor company too. The web is turning into a playground for monopolies. I feel like I might be able to find better prices by actually *leaving* my house.
It's funny how this is an ask slashdot today, as I asked a question to a newsgroup yesterday. It seems like there is limited linux support, but it exists if you get the right card. It also seems like Fibre Channel is very bleeding edge tech -- it makes me wonder just how good the drivers are simply due to lack of usage. I did not know this when I bought a fibre drive by mistake (Don't ask). Now I have a nice 9 gig fibre drive, and nothing to use it with. Also, would you be able to get faster rates using a card and drive on a 64 bit PCI like one found in an alpha? Finally, any suggestions on where to get a cheap controller card?
Slashdot Mirror
As we all know, apple is a hardware company which [Mostly] makes money from selling boxes, not licenses. Linux is a strange product in that it doesn t promote one form of hardware over another. Linux is not more helpful for one group then it is for another. (I can run the same dist on Alpha, Sparc, i386, and perhaps PPC) If I don't need apple hardware to run my programs, I have less reasons to use it. In many ways, Linux can hurt Apple more then MS, since the same people who like the Tech Aspects of Mac OS X could get similar results with different hardware. If there was the same Linux under PPC and Alpha, what incentive do I have to buy Mac?.
This might or might not be the reason. I would just suggest we take Apple with the same grain of salt we take Sun.
What are the reasons for not putting in XFree86 4.0? I am sure they had good reasons, but what are they exactly? Should I (or others) hold off before download source/RPMs?
A few weeks ago I (among others) install a computer in the studio for the purpose of playing MP3s. With this machine, a lot of a smaller/unknown people will get airplay. Thus, they will get more record sales and more people will know of them.
That is perhaps the only way I can think of Napster greatly helping smaller bands and labels as well as the entire music community. [Oh, I should add that I play experimental/avant Guard and 20th Cent. Classical. I can t find a single MP3 on Napster ofwhat I normally play. Perhaps this is why certain labels/composers are somewhat protected from the mp3 rush.]
So how dose barron's know this? Jupiter Communications, the foremost provider in technology statistics and predictions, claimed that AOL's user base would cap at 6ish million a few years ago. Now AOL has well over 10 million user. What this goes to show is that even the best are basically taking guesses at things like this. In Barrons case, I would tend to agree that it is a good guess. It is just important to remember that this prediction is not all that new, and that .com's have a nasty ability to stay alive for another day. Well, that is what I think of that.
For thoese of you too lazy to read the artical, I found this quote by a Microsoft attorney to be rather informative:
""There is clear language in this law that says if the consumer buys some software, sees the agreement and doesn't like the deal, they can get their money back," said Bob Gomulkiewicz, a senior corporate attorney for Microsoft. "UCITA actually makes that law."
How many of us baught a new computer and didn't like the MS software included or the "deal"? How many of the same people were easly able to get a refund for that software?
I would like to see the same questions asked to Linux and Mac users about there systems. I don't think the numbers would be shocking, it would be the differance between the percents of MS and everyone else. It means something when MS is 30% behind other OSs in user loyalty/enjoyment. There is only so much MS can FUDge.
The NSA is good at keeping things secure, but I drought they would keep something this big "lock up". Besides the state of the system is unimportant. What's important is what it is used for. You don't see them talking about that to CNN.
Now it turn out that it was a Hoax designed to help yahoo reduce costs. I am so very sorry for yahoo and there high costs (HA!) but I am getting really mad they they played around with loyal listers to solve there problum. Stressing out loyal listers is not the way to solve problums. Yahoo could have solved this problum a number of way, with this being the worst.
Personaly, I hope WFMU gets a differnt stream like they were planning on when this whole "problum" broke out. I don't like dealing with anyone who throws around the "consumer" when dealing with B to B problums. Becides, if yahoo really wanted to decrese costs *and* get more listeners, they only need to switch to the FREE streaming mp3 format.
Sorry for the rant and bad spelling. It happens.
Not Really. BU is Boston University, a unrelated school in Boston, across the river from MIT. Although it is somewhat near the school with the dead server, we at BU have absolutly nothing to do with there server, or anything else for that matter. Yet.
For thoese of you who think it is not a big deal, your wrong. Broadcast.com is one of the few places were you can find non-profit radio programming. These stations have *no* money to buy there own T3s and deserve to reach the most people. Once Yahoo makes this switch, we will lose this content.
If MS made Media Player on all platforms, it would not be a big deal. The fact that MS has claimed that the streaming feature in it's Media Player would be open-protcal for years and still has yet to show some docs means something. The fact that we will be losing a lot of good, imporant content means something. Maybe this will encourage someone to reverse the Media Player and come out with a Open player, but I don't think so. We need to prevent MS from claiming the entire streaming Media world, becuase that makes it that much easyer for the rest of the parts of the internet. Don't take this lightly.
Spell Check broke, sorry.
Just a thaught.
Everyone who agrees with RMS (To some degree) should send a nice, well thought out, letter to Amazon explaining your problems with there recent actions. Lets face it, the slashdot affect is really powerful. A few people here and there complained to fox when the blocked non-windows people, but fox actually did something when all of us wrote letters all at once.
Keep in mind, these letters CAN NOT BE FLAMES! That would only make things worst. Instead they must be claim, polite and well thought out. If you could not tell, I strongly agree with RMS on this one. We can't let silly patents like this ruin everything people on the internet have enjoyed for so many years.
Sig free since 93'...
The nice thing about Emacs/W3 is that you *don't* need to use it. Emacs runs fine without it, and fine with it. IMHO this is the way all browers should try to be. Much like the Gimp and XMMS, have the browers be not much more then a base to hold the "Plug-ins". This way people won't have 10meg downloads and you could customize it for the system you use. Anyway....
With New Hampshire's motto being "Live Free or Die", will they become the Open Source state?
I don't think that this should have been posted as a story, as it s not news for nerds. I also don t think we should all team upand criticize something for not being open or free, when there is no free & stable alternative yet. Just my 2 yen.
Who uses windows? At MIT, MS doesn t really care. They want theidea's, not to make every student hooked on NT. Don't get me wrong - they want kids hooked on windows, but the kids they areafter are a *long* way from college.
For ports, they list 4 USBs and a serial, but no parallel. When they take you to the printer order page, the specs on the printer say it comes with a parallel printer cable. Anyone else see the problem?
About the CPU problem. I responded to the guy about my experiences and he very quickly got back. He seemed surprised and eager to fix the problem. I think if we keep sending bug reports to these people (even if they are known bugs) then they will fix the package in a more timely manner.
This would be a perfect time to re-introduce the netwinder for something similar. If priced right, it would solve a lot of problems. The principal could be the same as the Sun Boxen, but you would also be able to introduce more powerful computing (For those who want it) and you would not become a "one solution" school. All the netwinder people would need to do is add a card reader, and slash the price in half. This would be a better solution for both the schools and the kids.
I have been giving this problum lots of thaught and I think that I have a solution.
In addition to the main coment page we have two others, AC and troll-trash. When someone posts an AC, the post automaticly goes to the AC list, one seprate from the main comment page. The AC list is just a holding place for comments. Moderators can then send the AC posts to one of two places. If the post is good, it goes onto the main comment page, and is treated like any other comment. If it's a troll it gets sent to the troll-trash list. Keep in mind that moderators do not lose points then moving AC posts in the AC list. When the post is put on the main comment page, then it can be moved up or down with the normal point system. Once in the trash, it can still be moved to the main comment page if another moderator sees fit. This is a check and balence of there powers. The AC and Troll-trash lists are publicly viewable, but seperatly from the main comment section. One exception to the rule is an AC post that is longer then a few lines, and the charters are differant. (Real words) Then it would go directly to the main comment page.
This may seem more confusing then it is. The idea is simple. Everyone can post, and everyone has the oppertunity to view messages that would be trash. They just don't come up with the comment page like normal. This should make both the trolls and the good posters happy people.
Just my idea. Please think it over.
I am not compleatly sure how MS Crypto works, so I am asking this not as flame bait. Is MS saying in this press release that the goverment dose not have keys ("Back doors"), but MS dose? Someone please clairfy this. Thanks
It is too bad that most of us in school in this area are too busy with classes and other requirements to even apply. I can walk to there offices in about 10 min, but I would be walking away from my classes. College is already a job an a half, without the fun of administrating the servers of one of the most important open source groups on earth.
I almost always agree with the Linux masses, but this time I agree with the SEC. They set up a policy that is designed to prevent people from doing something *really* stupid. It is a good policy, and I imagine that it has save a good amount of people from losing thousands of dollars. Most linux users (That I know at least) know very little about the stock market, especially IPOs. These people should gain a little more experience before investing in one of the most risky transactions. I think that E*trade was wrong to go back and let any redhat letter person invest in the IPO, without trading experience. Redhat should have made this clear in their letter, but then again, no one gets a piece of misleading mail - do they?
Ok. Musicblvd was one of the better music stores on the web, which merged with one not so good. That one then merged with one even worst. Surplus.com direct was a cool company that had decent deals on old parts. They then merged with a company that put an end to there free stuff. Finally, I turn to onsale, which has good shipping and prices, only to find that they merged with a poor company too. The web is turning into a playground for monopolies. I feel like I might be able to find better prices by actually *leaving* my house.
It's funny how this is an ask slashdot today, as I asked a question to a newsgroup yesterday. It seems like there is limited linux support, but it exists if you get the right card. It also seems like Fibre Channel is very bleeding edge tech -- it makes me wonder just how good the drivers are simply due to lack of usage. I did not know this when I bought a fibre drive by mistake (Don't ask). Now I have a nice 9 gig fibre drive, and nothing to use it with. Also, would you be able to get faster rates using a card and drive on a 64 bit PCI like one found in an alpha? Finally, any suggestions on where to get a cheap controller card?