As other replies have mentioned, Vista had problems with copying files - large or small quantities. Microsoft seemed to blame that on how the little scrolling bar dialog was updated, but whatever.
I've been using a beta of SP1 (heard about it from hear, nonetheless!) and that issue has been fixed. Purely anecdotal, I haven't done benchmarks or anything, but moving a GB of files around no longer takes a lunch break.
As others have mentioned, turn off thumbnail generation. Don't know how to do that off-hand - I have a beefy rig, and I like that feature.
As for "file signatures" and "permissions", those are things standard in the NTFS file system that have been there since NT; they're called "access control lists." Think of it as chmod on steroids - you get to set what users can access which files in what way. It's mostly for business environments, and doesn't have any real performance cost.
It could also be that the computer doesn't have enough memory - the "Vista Ready" thing. I have 2GB in my machine, but if you're editing video you probably want 4. Make sure you have a dual-core proc, too.
It could also be that the Vista driver for your hardware is crappy. I run x64; I know the pain.
But, it's not DRM. That DRM is only for decrypting any HD-DVDs or Blu-rays or whatever new-fangled "disc"-based format that comes from a shiny platter instead of the tubes.
Why doesn't it [Windows] have fast, easy keyboard shortcuts for most tasks?
Enter - hit the default button. Closes all those annoying "OK" dialogs.
Space - hit the currently selected button. Like a left mouse-click, but for the soul.
Tab - Switch between buttons/check boxes/tabs/etc in a form. Use arrow keys to select an option from a series of radio buttons.
Shift+Tab - Switch between buttons/check boxes/tabs/etc, but going the other way.
Windows+R - Bring up the "Run" dialog.
Windows+E - Bring up Explorer.
Windows+D - Minimize everything to your desktop. (Or restore everything again.)
F1 - Help.
CTRL+C or CTRL+INS - Copy files/selected text/etc. to clipboard. (Sorry, meta+C.)
CTRL+V or SHIFT+INS - Paste files/selected text/etc. from clipboard.
ALT+F4 - Close current program or dialog box.
CTRL+SHIFT+ESC - Bring up task manager.
CTRL+ALT+DEL - You should know what this does. Also brings up "Windows 2000" style login from the welcome (user selection) screen in XP.
You can run Windows without a mouse. No, really, you can - my desktop only has icons for games with long paths hidden in program files. With Windows 98 (and maybe others) you could set the default shell in WIN.INI or some other file to the command prompt instead of explorer.exe - the effect was a DOS-looking computer that could run all your Windows 98 apps! (My parents didn't see the novelty in this.)
As for honking graphics... Aero! (ducks)
But, I use a DAS Keyboard 2 and type 140 wpm on a slow day. I hate the lag time involved in reaching for the bloody 2-dimensional X,Y coordinate translocator, so I use these shortcuts daily. I'm sure there are others; these are just the ones that came to mind.
You ignore the network effect of the damage inflicted by all the people he uploads to.
Possibly, if he was the last seeder, there could be a network effect.
I would call it negligible otherwise - and it's offset by the money you're giving to your ISP rather than to the producers. You're just shifting profit around.
Interesting about the oceanic power, but I'm waiting for the giant solar power generating space station/space elevator combos in Gundam 00.
But - people will bust their ass when we start running out of fuel. Why? Cause there will actually be money in it then - if the last barrels of crude are $100 bucks a pop, you bet ethanol/solar/magic elves/etc will be affordable! The nice thing about capitalism is where there's money, the problems fix themselves.
2) A basic rail system, with maintenance, a renewable energy system, with maintenance (emphasis mine)
The renewable energy part is a problem. You think you're going to put sails on an AmTrak train? Find a windfarm large enough to power an electric train that would have to continuously carry millions of people? Only let people commute downhill?
As for the budget projection, I'd refer you to the success (or lack thereof) of the "Big Dig" in Massachusetts. Or any government "budget." I'd also be wary about financing things right now because of the monoline crisis and the failure of auction-rate security sales.
Public transportation is nice, and in some places it can/has been successful. But it's not a panacea, especially for a country used to the convenience of travel on your own schedule. It's night impossible to get a job if your hours are dependent on the bus schedule.
Your "modularity causes viruses" comment is BS. Most viruses don't work by "updating" something in the OS like a software installer does - at most they rape an executeable, if they're file-infecting virii. Lots are self-contained SMTP servers and ICQ relays for spam and botnet stuff, or open up ports for spyware fun. Even more are VB scripts that just delete random files.
There really are very few instances where "updating the OS" occurs, and most of the components in use are not part of the operating system. Internet Explorer, for example, has a self-contained interface that lets a program steal its renderer. With a few lines of code, your program now contains a complete web browser, for example.
Now, if you install IE7, odds are that some program somewhere is using this feature - maybe you have some HTML help open somewhere. A restart is needed to update the shared part of the program to ensure nobody else is using it when you start tinkering.
Now, how many PopCap games do you think export features shared by other programs? My guess is zero. Your grandmother can install Bejeweled and immediately start swapping gems without a restart. But, if other programs depend on something you're updating, they'll have to be closed - and a restart is the easiest and safest way to guarantee this - it has nothing at all to do with the operating system.
Windows exports a rather expansive and robust API - rarely are you going to have to "update something in the OS", and in modern times, that isn't even possible.
I'm always leary about programs that ask you to reboot the system in order to run even if they are legit.
Why? Windows is modular - what are you supposed to do if a program updates a component that's already in use?
Granted, this doesn't happen very often unless you're installing a driver. But, most "restart your computer" warnings are, in modern times, superstition.
Go ahead - I dare you to install Age of Empires II and then run it without a reboot. The devs are just being cautious.
Remind me again, why is free trade with China such a great deal for the developed world?
Screw all the people who say "those evil CEOs want an extra dollar in the stock benefits" or whoever the current bogeyman is.
Trade with China is good for the developed world because they can make some things a lot cheaper than we can. Practically everything we buy is cheaper, either directly or indirectly, because of Chinese production.
The higher standards of living everyone enjoys comes with the cost of some domestic jobs. If you have to pay a union worker at Delphi $60/hr to make auto parts, you're not going to buy from Delphi if you don't have to - and China is what makes "don't have to" possible.
We lose jobs in some sectors, but everyone's dollar goes further. Is that a "fair trade", pardon the pun? You be the judge.
Maybe a series of binary operations in a demented variant of some kind of pseudo-C isn't the most articulate way to argue something.
I meant that Che is seen as more charasmatic in modern times than Hitler is. It isn't exactly trendy to walk around with your red Hitler t-shirt, is it? People see Mr. Guevara as a kind of populist hero, not the guy who murdered and tortured any dissidents under Fidel Castro.
Nobody today thinks of Hitler the same way - you don't see his visage on CD covers in Wal-Mart. There are obvious differences in scale between Hitler's atrocities and Che's, but people seem to forget that Che wasn't exactly a fun guy to be around, either.
As to laws banning Hitler's speeches, those seem to attest towards a skittish think-of-the-children government more than the lasting power of his words. (Although I have seen some of his speeches full and uncut and, not being able to understand German, he gives one helluva speech. Always starting out slow, almost nervous, working his way up, and then everybody is screaming and saluting and ready for blood. So maybe I'm missing something here, too.)
Real property is taxed because you choose to live in a community that provides services to landowners. Sewer, garbage collection, by-law enforcement, street lights, sidewalks.... IF you want to go live up north or somewhere really really rural with no supporting services - you generally don't pay property tax.
That's another interesting point. Property taxes pay for services that the government provides to land owners... but what services does the government provide to IP owners? Maybe these could be (are?) included in a "registration" fee - i.e., some fixed cost to submit a patent application.
You claim a value. You make up the value - whatever you want to say it is. You are then taxed on that value. The only caveat is that if someone wants it from you they can buy the whole damn thing from you for the price you claimed it was worth
I liked this idea a lot, until I realized that this would concentrate all the IP rights - patents, copyrights, the whole shebang - into the hands of the super-rich. Neither Joe Q. Inventor working in his garage or Sally S. Songwriter are going to be able to pay the taxes on a high valuation, meaning Evil Record Label/Evil Faceless Corporation will be able to buy everything they've created at a low price.
Besides, what would this do to licensing? I'm thinking the "copyleft" schemes that the GNU software falls under. That's intellectual property, isn't it? The right to license that software as open source, and the requirements to make source code of derivative works freely available? What kind of valuation would keep evil Bill Gates from buying it? Who would pay the taxes on it? What happens to licensing if the owners of the IP change?
We're looking at this the wrong way. Not "If Intellectual Property is property, we should tax it, too" but "If IP isn't taxed, why should real property?"
This is a separate issue COMPLETELY unrelated to the bungled OOXML thingie. The EU apparently wants them to release a bunch of documentation about their file formats because of a ruling ordering them to release information on protocols their OS uses, so that other OS vendors could make interoperable products.
OOXML != Binary Word 6 documents.
Besides, you're forgetting that pre-internet, computer security was not an issue. You didn't want somebody trashing your drive, obviously, but how could that happen? Viruses were a novelty that spread through floppies. If you had a PC at home, you knew who had access to it. Businesses were using them as giant calculators for the longest time, and had just as many problems with people vandalizing PCs as they did with somebody abusing an electric typewriter.
It wasn't a security v. performance tradeoff - there just was very little to "protect" against at the time when these formats were written.
Not that my Spanish is perfect, but he doesn't want higher barriers of entry to programmers. He seems to be saying that free software exists simply to destroy business opportunities that would otherwise serve to be making money and providing for-pay jobs. (An interesting but unrelated thought: if open-source contributors are mostly professional programmers, what happens when the market for for-profit software dies?)
I think he misses the flip side of this, though: although no programmers got paid for the missed business opportunity as he alleges FOSS causes, it freed up a lot of disposable income to be spent in other sectors of the economy. People's standards of living are higher - more software on the same budget - at the alleged cost of programming jobs. Think of FOSS as the WalMart of software.
I think his anti-FOSS attitude is a reaction to the attitudes of FOSS zealots - in his mind, they're not trying to do anything productive, just destroy the software market because they hate M$ and those evil, evil BIG BU$INE$$!1!!omgSHIFT+1. An interesting line is el software libre pertenece a un estado mental rebelde, algo adolescente y nihilista que no lleva a ningún sitio, or free software is part of a rebellious mental state, something adolescent and nihilist that leads nowhere.
He's quite angry at open-source software, and of course that viewpoint isn't going to get him much +1 Insightful on Slashdot. But, it's an interesting read for the espanohablantes.
Scroll down to the part called "How Does Moderation Work?" Pretty much a few random people with good karma are randomly given a few points every once in a while. You can tell if you have them, because drop-down boxes appear next to every post.
I go to a liberal arts college that manages to have a CS major. You're required to take Machine Architecture (you write assembly language programs for the x86 architecture, and learn about parts of the CPU and microcode and whatnot.) You have to take Operating Systems - our last lab was on UNIX fork()ing and its effects on a process's file descriptor table and i-nodes. You also have to take Data Structures, which talks about Big O-notation for measuring algorithm efficiency, and Event Programming, which touches on MFC and the Win32 API, as well as some less useful stuff like Flash.
So - do "tech" schools have a worse CS curriculum than my liberal arts college?
Evidently marijuana smoke contains 20 times more ammonia than tobacco smoke, along with a bunch more HCN and nitrogen oxides. Y'know, the same NOXes that pollution controls slam factories for spewing into the air, but shot directly into your lungs instead.
It causes short-term memory loss, and can lead to the development of panic reactions. It's also "linked" to psychosis, with some users being 200% more likely than non-users to become psychotic.
So, it's not all propaganda. I guess it's supposed to be worse than smoking, which TV, Congress, and Sesame Street tell me kills baby kittens. (Not just any kitten, mind you, the baby kitten, most adorable of the species.)
1/2 ton of metal, I think, for my tank. Living on campus in the middle of down town, I walk a lot. Car is for visiting parents over holidays - my gaming rig has a bigger carbon footprint than my boat^H^H^H^H Buick.
And last time I checked, even the Prius was made of metal - but they get improved gas mileage at the cost of even more reactive metals used to make the batteries. The battery's an additional environmental cost that other cars don't have, but those other cars pollute more.
Is this more "pollution" than a traditional engine? I don't think so, but it comes at a cost not measured solely in miles per gallon.
Real innovation will start when we actually, for real, get to "peak" oil. (Remember, somebody, somewhere, has been saying we're at "peak" since the end of the 19th century.) Prices for crude will skyrocket - imagine how tremendously profitable that would make innovation! If a gallon of gas costs $100, imagine how much more attractive that Prius is.
The best environmental policy, in my not-so-humble opinion, is just like prices continue to climb. People will jump to ethanol/fairy magic/etc. all on their own, and will pay through the nose to do so. Everyone wins, and the Iowa farmer will become the new Exxon-Mobil.
As a Canadian, I'm always surprised how much the religious right seems to have influence in the USA when the appear to represent the minority opinion.
The vast majority of the country is Christian, although not as much as it used to be. That's not to say that 78.4% of the country are reactionary zealots, but keep in mind that religious people of all stripes are likely to be influenced to arguments that appeal to their religion.
Athiests, on the other hand, are an incredible minority. Less than 22% of this country is "non-Christian", and that includes people not affiliated with any specific faith, Buddhists, Muslims, etc. But, how often do you hear diatribes against the "religious right?" Christmas trees? Flying Spaghetti Monsters?
That's not to say that minority opinions have no right to express themselves, or that the "religious right" speaks for all who are religious. But, they try to appeal to what roughly 80% of our country has in common on either side of the political spectrum.
And, the mods are on crack again. How was parent poster CohibaVancouver flamebait? "But if that's the will of the majority, then so be it. And if that's not the will of the majority, then get organized and change the law." seems like a rather neutral answer to some demagoguery about "religiously sponsored legislative actions."
Wtf? I thought it was a server OS. What does Microsoft think a server is? Admins cant find a config file so they need to search for it?
I've worked with Windows Server 2003 and a beta of "Longhorn Server" a number of years ago (pretty much the same thing.)
They do know what a server is, which is why the "desktop experience" crap is turned off by default (Aero, DirectX, video drivers, etc.) Same goes for wireless.
I don't know if things have changed since then, but all the default install got you was a "start" menu, in the Windows 95 sense of the word. You went into your config screen and added "roles" if you wanted to route e-mail, be a domain controller, etc.
BUT... there are a lot of people out there who use Windows server editions just for desktop work, because they tend to be smaller and more stable - the "really good" editions. An expensive solution, sure, but whatever floats your boat.
No, it's true. Biggest problem is how to dispose of that rechargeable battery with all those chemicals and heavy metals in it; they're a lot nastier than your regular car battery.
Second biggest problem is building that battery in the first place. IIRC, nickel and other ore refined using chemicals that make oven cleaner look like lemonade, then sent to Japan for manufacture into intermediate parts, then sent back to China for assembly into the actual battery, before being shipped to America. Lots of miles on a boat, that is.
I just don't see how it could be deemed efficient for a basic desktop app to query a registry of hundreds of thousands(millions?) of keys/values to decide if my background should be blue or green.
2900 queries on a folder action does seem like a lot, but a lot of it is cached in memory. The structure of disk is very efficient; you probably have to make just as many hits to the C* trees in the NTFS file system to find/open that folder.
Slashdot Mirror
As other replies have mentioned, Vista had problems with copying files - large or small quantities. Microsoft seemed to blame that on how the little scrolling bar dialog was updated, but whatever.
I've been using a beta of SP1 (heard about it from hear, nonetheless!) and that issue has been fixed. Purely anecdotal, I haven't done benchmarks or anything, but moving a GB of files around no longer takes a lunch break.
As others have mentioned, turn off thumbnail generation. Don't know how to do that off-hand - I have a beefy rig, and I like that feature.
As for "file signatures" and "permissions", those are things standard in the NTFS file system that have been there since NT; they're called "access control lists." Think of it as chmod on steroids - you get to set what users can access which files in what way. It's mostly for business environments, and doesn't have any real performance cost.
It could also be that the computer doesn't have enough memory - the "Vista Ready" thing. I have 2GB in my machine, but if you're editing video you probably want 4. Make sure you have a dual-core proc, too.
It could also be that the Vista driver for your hardware is crappy. I run x64; I know the pain.
But, it's not DRM. That DRM is only for decrypting any HD-DVDs or Blu-rays or whatever new-fangled "disc"-based format that comes from a shiny platter instead of the tubes.
Why doesn't it [Windows] have fast, easy keyboard shortcuts for most tasks?
Enter - hit the default button. Closes all those annoying "OK" dialogs.
Space - hit the currently selected button. Like a left mouse-click, but for the soul.
Tab - Switch between buttons/check boxes/tabs/etc in a form. Use arrow keys to select an option from a series of radio buttons.
Shift+Tab - Switch between buttons/check boxes/tabs/etc, but going the other way.
Windows+R - Bring up the "Run" dialog.
Windows+E - Bring up Explorer.
Windows+D - Minimize everything to your desktop. (Or restore everything again.)
F1 - Help.
CTRL+C or CTRL+INS - Copy files/selected text/etc. to clipboard. (Sorry, meta+C.)
CTRL+V or SHIFT+INS - Paste files/selected text/etc. from clipboard.
ALT+F4 - Close current program or dialog box.
CTRL+SHIFT+ESC - Bring up task manager.
CTRL+ALT+DEL - You should know what this does. Also brings up "Windows 2000" style login from the welcome (user selection) screen in XP.
You can run Windows without a mouse. No, really, you can - my desktop only has icons for games with long paths hidden in program files. With Windows 98 (and maybe others) you could set the default shell in WIN.INI or some other file to the command prompt instead of explorer.exe - the effect was a DOS-looking computer that could run all your Windows 98 apps! (My parents didn't see the novelty in this.)
As for honking graphics... Aero! (ducks)
But, I use a DAS Keyboard 2 and type 140 wpm on a slow day. I hate the lag time involved in reaching for the bloody 2-dimensional X,Y coordinate translocator, so I use these shortcuts daily. I'm sure there are others; these are just the ones that came to mind.
You ignore the network effect of the damage inflicted by all the people he uploads to.
Possibly, if he was the last seeder, there could be a network effect.
I would call it negligible otherwise - and it's offset by the money you're giving to your ISP rather than to the producers. You're just shifting profit around.
Interesting about the oceanic power, but I'm waiting for the giant solar power generating space station/space elevator combos in Gundam 00.
But - people will bust their ass when we start running out of fuel. Why? Cause there will actually be money in it then - if the last barrels of crude are $100 bucks a pop, you bet ethanol/solar/magic elves/etc will be affordable! The nice thing about capitalism is where there's money, the problems fix themselves.
Some of us pirate to help the current Music and Movie industries implode quicker
Too bad pirating something you never would have bought does about $0 in economic damages.
What was your media budget pre-internet? That's about as much damage as you can inflict regardless of how much you piss off your ISP.
2) A basic rail system, with maintenance, a renewable energy system, with maintenance (emphasis mine)
The renewable energy part is a problem. You think you're going to put sails on an AmTrak train? Find a windfarm large enough to power an electric train that would have to continuously carry millions of people? Only let people commute downhill?
As for the budget projection, I'd refer you to the success (or lack thereof) of the "Big Dig" in Massachusetts. Or any government "budget." I'd also be wary about financing things right now because of the monoline crisis and the failure of auction-rate security sales.
Public transportation is nice, and in some places it can/has been successful. But it's not a panacea, especially for a country used to the convenience of travel on your own schedule. It's night impossible to get a job if your hours are dependent on the bus schedule.
Your "modularity causes viruses" comment is BS. Most viruses don't work by "updating" something in the OS like a software installer does - at most they rape an executeable, if they're file-infecting virii. Lots are self-contained SMTP servers and ICQ relays for spam and botnet stuff, or open up ports for spyware fun. Even more are VB scripts that just delete random files.
There really are very few instances where "updating the OS" occurs, and most of the components in use are not part of the operating system. Internet Explorer, for example, has a self-contained interface that lets a program steal its renderer. With a few lines of code, your program now contains a complete web browser, for example.
Now, if you install IE7, odds are that some program somewhere is using this feature - maybe you have some HTML help open somewhere. A restart is needed to update the shared part of the program to ensure nobody else is using it when you start tinkering.
Now, how many PopCap games do you think export features shared by other programs? My guess is zero. Your grandmother can install Bejeweled and immediately start swapping gems without a restart. But, if other programs depend on something you're updating, they'll have to be closed - and a restart is the easiest and safest way to guarantee this - it has nothing at all to do with the operating system.
Windows exports a rather expansive and robust API - rarely are you going to have to "update something in the OS", and in modern times, that isn't even possible.
I'm always leary about programs that ask you to reboot the system in order to run even if they are legit.
Why? Windows is modular - what are you supposed to do if a program updates a component that's already in use?
Granted, this doesn't happen very often unless you're installing a driver. But, most "restart your computer" warnings are, in modern times, superstition.
Go ahead - I dare you to install Age of Empires II and then run it without a reboot. The devs are just being cautious.
So... Japan has less crime and higher standards of living... And they don't let people participate as much as we do?
They may be on to something here...
Remind me again, why is free trade with China such a great deal for the developed world?
Screw all the people who say "those evil CEOs want an extra dollar in the stock benefits" or whoever the current bogeyman is.
Trade with China is good for the developed world because they can make some things a lot cheaper than we can. Practically everything we buy is cheaper, either directly or indirectly, because of Chinese production.
The higher standards of living everyone enjoys comes with the cost of some domestic jobs. If you have to pay a union worker at Delphi $60/hr to make auto parts, you're not going to buy from Delphi if you don't have to - and China is what makes "don't have to" possible.
We lose jobs in some sectors, but everyone's dollar goes further. Is that a "fair trade", pardon the pun? You be the judge.
Maybe a series of binary operations in a demented variant of some kind of pseudo-C isn't the most articulate way to argue something.
I meant that Che is seen as more charasmatic in modern times than Hitler is. It isn't exactly trendy to walk around with your red Hitler t-shirt, is it? People see Mr. Guevara as a kind of populist hero, not the guy who murdered and tortured any dissidents under Fidel Castro.
Nobody today thinks of Hitler the same way - you don't see his visage on CD covers in Wal-Mart. There are obvious differences in scale between Hitler's atrocities and Che's, but people seem to forget that Che wasn't exactly a fun guy to be around, either.
As to laws banning Hitler's speeches, those seem to attest towards a skittish think-of-the-children government more than the lasting power of his words. (Although I have seen some of his speeches full and uncut and, not being able to understand German, he gives one helluva speech. Always starting out slow, almost nervous, working his way up, and then everybody is screaming and saluting and ready for blood. So maybe I'm missing something here, too.)
che != hitler by a long shot!
che.getSuccess() < hitler.getSuccess()
che.getEvil() == hitler.getEvil()
che.getCharisma() > hitler.getCharisma()
this->QED();
Real property is taxed because you choose to live in a community that provides services to landowners. Sewer, garbage collection, by-law enforcement, street lights, sidewalks.... IF you want to go live up north or somewhere really really rural with no supporting services - you generally don't pay property tax.
That's another interesting point. Property taxes pay for services that the government provides to land owners... but what services does the government provide to IP owners? Maybe these could be (are?) included in a "registration" fee - i.e., some fixed cost to submit a patent application.
You claim a value. You make up the value - whatever you want to say it is. You are then taxed on that value. The only caveat is that if someone wants it from you they can buy the whole damn thing from you for the price you claimed it was worth
I liked this idea a lot, until I realized that this would concentrate all the IP rights - patents, copyrights, the whole shebang - into the hands of the super-rich. Neither Joe Q. Inventor working in his garage or Sally S. Songwriter are going to be able to pay the taxes on a high valuation, meaning Evil Record Label/Evil Faceless Corporation will be able to buy everything they've created at a low price.
Besides, what would this do to licensing? I'm thinking the "copyleft" schemes that the GNU software falls under. That's intellectual property, isn't it? The right to license that software as open source, and the requirements to make source code of derivative works freely available? What kind of valuation would keep evil Bill Gates from buying it? Who would pay the taxes on it? What happens to licensing if the owners of the IP change?
We're looking at this the wrong way. Not "If Intellectual Property is property, we should tax it, too" but "If IP isn't taxed, why should real property?"
This is a separate issue COMPLETELY unrelated to the bungled OOXML thingie. The EU apparently wants them to release a bunch of documentation about their file formats because of a ruling ordering them to release information on protocols their OS uses, so that other OS vendors could make interoperable products.
OOXML != Binary Word 6 documents.
Besides, you're forgetting that pre-internet, computer security was not an issue. You didn't want somebody trashing your drive, obviously, but how could that happen? Viruses were a novelty that spread through floppies. If you had a PC at home, you knew who had access to it. Businesses were using them as giant calculators for the longest time, and had just as many problems with people vandalizing PCs as they did with somebody abusing an electric typewriter.
It wasn't a security v. performance tradeoff - there just was very little to "protect" against at the time when these formats were written.
Not that my Spanish is perfect, but he doesn't want higher barriers of entry to programmers. He seems to be saying that free software exists simply to destroy business opportunities that would otherwise serve to be making money and providing for-pay jobs. (An interesting but unrelated thought: if open-source contributors are mostly professional programmers, what happens when the market for for-profit software dies?)
I think he misses the flip side of this, though: although no programmers got paid for the missed business opportunity as he alleges FOSS causes, it freed up a lot of disposable income to be spent in other sectors of the economy. People's standards of living are higher - more software on the same budget - at the alleged cost of programming jobs. Think of FOSS as the WalMart of software.
I think his anti-FOSS attitude is a reaction to the attitudes of FOSS zealots - in his mind, they're not trying to do anything productive, just destroy the software market because they hate M$ and those evil, evil BIG BU$INE$$!1!!omgSHIFT+1. An interesting line is el software libre pertenece a un estado mental rebelde, algo adolescente y nihilista que no lleva a ningún sitio, or free software is part of a rebellious mental state, something adolescent and nihilist that leads nowhere.
He's quite angry at open-source software, and of course that viewpoint isn't going to get him much +1 Insightful on Slashdot. But, it's an interesting read for the espanohablantes.
Link
Scroll down to the part called "How Does Moderation Work?" Pretty much a few random people with good karma are randomly given a few points every once in a while. You can tell if you have them, because drop-down boxes appear next to every post.
I go to a liberal arts college that manages to have a CS major. You're required to take Machine Architecture (you write assembly language programs for the x86 architecture, and learn about parts of the CPU and microcode and whatnot.) You have to take Operating Systems - our last lab was on UNIX fork()ing and its effects on a process's file descriptor table and i-nodes. You also have to take Data Structures, which talks about Big O-notation for measuring algorithm efficiency, and Event Programming, which touches on MFC and the Win32 API, as well as some less useful stuff like Flash.
So - do "tech" schools have a worse CS curriculum than my liberal arts college?
Obligatory wikipedia link: link
Evidently marijuana smoke contains 20 times more ammonia than tobacco smoke, along with a bunch more HCN and nitrogen oxides. Y'know, the same NOXes that pollution controls slam factories for spewing into the air, but shot directly into your lungs instead.
It causes short-term memory loss, and can lead to the development of panic reactions. It's also "linked" to psychosis, with some users being 200% more likely than non-users to become psychotic.
So, it's not all propaganda. I guess it's supposed to be worse than smoking, which TV, Congress, and Sesame Street tell me kills baby kittens. (Not just any kitten, mind you, the baby kitten, most adorable of the species.)
1/2 ton of metal, I think, for my tank. Living on campus in the middle of down town, I walk a lot. Car is for visiting parents over holidays - my gaming rig has a bigger carbon footprint than my boat^H^H^H^H Buick.
And last time I checked, even the Prius was made of metal - but they get improved gas mileage at the cost of even more reactive metals used to make the batteries. The battery's an additional environmental cost that other cars don't have, but those other cars pollute more.
Is this more "pollution" than a traditional engine? I don't think so, but it comes at a cost not measured solely in miles per gallon.
Real innovation will start when we actually, for real, get to "peak" oil. (Remember, somebody, somewhere, has been saying we're at "peak" since the end of the 19th century.) Prices for crude will skyrocket - imagine how tremendously profitable that would make innovation! If a gallon of gas costs $100, imagine how much more attractive that Prius is.
The best environmental policy, in my not-so-humble opinion, is just like prices continue to climb. People will jump to ethanol/fairy magic/etc. all on their own, and will pay through the nose to do so. Everyone wins, and the Iowa farmer will become the new Exxon-Mobil.
As a Canadian, I'm always surprised how much the religious right seems to have influence in the USA when the appear to represent the minority opinion.
The vast majority of the country is Christian, although not as much as it used to be. That's not to say that 78.4% of the country are reactionary zealots, but keep in mind that religious people of all stripes are likely to be influenced to arguments that appeal to their religion.
Athiests, on the other hand, are an incredible minority. Less than 22% of this country is "non-Christian", and that includes people not affiliated with any specific faith, Buddhists, Muslims, etc. But, how often do you hear diatribes against the "religious right?" Christmas trees? Flying Spaghetti Monsters?
That's not to say that minority opinions have no right to express themselves, or that the "religious right" speaks for all who are religious. But, they try to appeal to what roughly 80% of our country has in common on either side of the political spectrum.
And, the mods are on crack again. How was parent poster CohibaVancouver flamebait? "But if that's the will of the majority, then so be it. And if that's not the will of the majority, then get organized and change the law." seems like a rather neutral answer to some demagoguery about "religiously sponsored legislative actions."
It uses different resources, tho. Less black gold, more earth metals.
But, it's not like I care - I drive a Buick Roadmaster, the thing's the unholy combination of a boat and a tank, and has a V8.
MPG doesn't matter if you don't drive much, or very far, and maintenance isn't bad.
Wtf? I thought it was a server OS. What does Microsoft think a server is? Admins cant find a config file so they need to search for it?
I've worked with Windows Server 2003 and a beta of "Longhorn Server" a number of years ago (pretty much the same thing.)
They do know what a server is, which is why the "desktop experience" crap is turned off by default (Aero, DirectX, video drivers, etc.) Same goes for wireless.
I don't know if things have changed since then, but all the default install got you was a "start" menu, in the Windows 95 sense of the word. You went into your config screen and added "roles" if you wanted to route e-mail, be a domain controller, etc.
BUT... there are a lot of people out there who use Windows server editions just for desktop work, because they tend to be smaller and more stable - the "really good" editions. An expensive solution, sure, but whatever floats your boat.
No, it's true. Biggest problem is how to dispose of that rechargeable battery with all those chemicals and heavy metals in it; they're a lot nastier than your regular car battery.
Second biggest problem is building that battery in the first place. IIRC, nickel and other ore refined using chemicals that make oven cleaner look like lemonade, then sent to Japan for manufacture into intermediate parts, then sent back to China for assembly into the actual battery, before being shipped to America. Lots of miles on a boat, that is.
I just don't see how it could be deemed efficient for a basic desktop app to query a registry of hundreds of thousands(millions?) of keys/values to decide if my background should be blue or green.
2900 queries on a folder action does seem like a lot, but a lot of it is cached in memory. The structure of disk is very efficient; you probably have to make just as many hits to the C* trees in the NTFS file system to find/open that folder.