I think you jest, but they've been calling computers "electronic brains" since they were brand new in the late forties and had less processing power than a musical Hallmark card. People understand neither computers nor brains, and the ones who understand computers don't understand brains or you wouldn't have really intelligent idiots talking about uploading your brain to a computer.
But there's this this called anthropomorphism that makes it incredibly easy to fool a human into thinking an inanimate object has sentience; look at the carved gods the ancients had. How often do you talk to your computer or car or other machinery when it acts up (heh, "acts up", more anthropomorphism; machines don't act up, they get out of spec)?
And it's dirt simple to make a computer seem sentient. I did it in 1983 on a 1 mz Z-80 with 16k of memory. Ironically, I wrote it to show that machines could NOT think, that it was smoke and mirrors, but people thought that primitive computer and my program could think.
In the future you surely will have people believing that computers and robots are sentient, and morons will certainly call for them to have rights.
Remember, people are easily fooled. Ask James Randi or David Copperfield.
Now lets be really generous and suppose that they will create 1000 new positions, thats at a cost of $10 billion in taxpayer money or about $10,000,000 per position.
Most of that $10b is equipment, all of which has to be manufactured, meaning a lot more than 1000 jobs. And look at all the jobs in related sectors that would have been lost if Obushma had simply let GM die. Do you have any idea how many parts and plant equipment would have gone out of business had GM collapsed?
You are not a smart person, nor a creative thinker.
My IQ has been tested at 150 in the educational system and I have a novel for sale. So yeah, I'm as dumb and uncreative as you are civil.
Since you seem to be incapable of civility, this conversation is over. Fuck off.
Until November of 2006 XP, Linux, and Mac were their only choices. So no, it isn't on them, many of whom rely on software that won't run on anything later than XP. Nine years is a ridiculously short time to support an OS; again, computers last a lot longer than nine years. So no, it isn't on the guy who bought a brand new computer in 2006 and expected it to work seven years later. Hell, my car and TV are both 2002 models manufactured in 2001. Both work just fine and I can replace any part on it with one manufactured by the auto or TV manufacturer. Why should computers be any different?
Planned obsolescence is irresponsible and sociopathic. Those old XP computers that work just fine won't run W7 (and nobody wants W8), the owners should just landfill them? THAT would be irresponsible of them. They aren't responsible for Windows bugs and design defects, Microsoft is.
But I forgot, this is the 21st century where corporations aren't expected to act responsibly or in society's interest.
Red hat is open source, if an out of date copy needs patches it can be patched by a competent programmer. Not so XP. If MS open sourced XP I would have no problem with them EOLing it, someone would patch it because they need the OS.
If someone discovers an exploit it should be patched, period. If they don't want to spend the money they should open-source the "dead" software that 1/3 of the world's computers run on so someone else can patch it.
There are a lot of responsible actions. MS is taking none. It's reprehensible.
Agreed (what moron modded you flamebait??). I've had DSL for years and have no problems with it. TV shows stream nicely (or did, damned Windows computer has gotten slow but the wifi streams to the phone just fine), and that's with BitTorrent and often other stuff running.
Of course, I live alone. I can see where someone with a big family where all ten kids are watching a different YouTube show while playing Angry Birds might need more throughput, but DSL works for me. It might be different if I were still a gamer.
That family's bottleneck will likely be their own router. Internet bottlenecks are often your own wiring.
I find it amusing that people keep trying to sell me shit I don't need, like OMFG SUPER FAST CABLE!!! I simply don't need the speed, what I have works well and doesn't cost a lot.
Never have I seen so many Microsoft shills on slashdot in a single day... you should know better than that. Here's how to install Linux on a box with no OS:
1. insert installation media 2. Boot the machine 3. Enter preferences (time zone, passwords, defaults, etc) 4. Let it run for a little while 5. Press "enter".
Done. When patches come down the pike, one click and you're done, no reboots necessary. Now, here's how to install Windows on a box with no OS (sorry, this is for 95, 98, and XP, never installed any newer MS OS)
1. insert installation media 2. Boot the machine 3. Enter a preference 4. Wait five minutes 5. Enter another preference 6. Wait five minutes 7. Enter another preference 8. Wait five minutes 9. Enter another preference 10. Wait five minutes 11. Enter another preference 12. Wait five minutes 13. Enter another preference 14. Wait forty five minutes 15. remove media and press "enter" 16. Enter password 17. install a driver 18. reboot 19. install another driver 20. reboot... 30 Install antivirus 31 reboot 32 Install an office suite 33 reboot 34 Install another piece of software 35 Reboot 36 Install...
Sorry, Mister Shill, you have it backwards. MS needs more work every single month than it takes to install Linux, which will happily run without fiddling or reboots for years. Some people only boot their Linux boxes when a component fails and they have to shut it down to replace a physical part.
Windows? Your computer is unusable for at least a half an hour from Patch Tuesday, after which a reboot is required. In Linux, one click and the update is done, you just go on working on whatever you were doing while it updates.
Yes, roundabouts are safer than stop signs and red lights, but they won't work on roads with more than two lanes, nor can most city intersections be re-engineered for them because there simply isn't enough space.
We have exactly one in Springfield, 12 blocks from the Capitol. There isn't enough room anywhere else.
Oh, for fuck's sake, GM is opening five new factories in the US this year and hiring a shitload of workers, they can't keep the cars on the lots they're selling them so fast; last night the TV said one was sold every 40 seconds. What the taxpayer "lost" by this is nothing, since all those now-employed people are taxpayers, as well as the ones who would have been out of work if GM had collapsed. This is increased revenue, not decreased revenue.
Until the 19th century or so, these were just semi-wild animals that got access to our barns and homes to kill rodents, but they would claw you the moment you tried to touch them.
Citation BADLY needed, wikipedia disagrees with you completely (it also says that this "news" is 14 years old).
Traditionally, historians tended to think that ancient Egypt was the site of cat domestication, owing to the clear depictions of house cats in Egyptian paintings about 3,600 years old.[4] However, in 2004, a Neolithic grave was excavated in Shillourokambos, Cyprus, that contained the skeletons, laid close to one another, of both a human and a cat. The grave is estimated to be 9,500 years old, pushing back the earliest known felineâ"human association significantly.
<snip>
The Romans are often credited with introducing the domestic cat from Egypt to Europe;[211]:223 in Roman Aquitaine, a 1st or 2nd century epitaph of a young girl holding a cat is one of two earliest depictions of the Roman domesticated cat.[212] However, it is possible that cats were already kept in Europe prior to the Roman Empire, as they may have already been present in Britain in the late Iron Age.[41] Domestic cats were spread throughout much of the rest of the world during the Age of Discovery, as they were carried on sailing ships to control shipboard rodents and as good-luck charms.[211]:223
I'd say my wikipedia citation trumps your personal assumptions, which wikipedia shows is utterly and completely false.
Nobody gets a union they don't deserve, whether a company or its workers. Treat your workers right and they won't unionize.
Unions are ridiculously powerful in the US
They were sixty years ago, today they're pretty toothless. Look at Hostess, the union gave up concession after concession while management was running the business into the ground and "earning" multimillion dollar bonuses after all the workers were fired and lost their pensions. They were the victims, not the villains.
Employers who deal with unions have to have union approval for practically anything they do
Which is hammered out in contract negotiations. Don't blame the unions if they have better negotiators than you've hired, boss.
Personally, I prefer smaller negotiating groups like worker councils and interest groups
Of course you would, so would every other business executive, Mitt.
You guys must not be submitting very good stories then. Roughly a third of my submissions were accepted. I've had the same problem as Socatume, but I've also had mistakes corrected before posting. Usually, though, they don't even bother reading it, if it's upvoted in the firehose they usually just post it without looking at it.
Only one in ten Americans have that disease, where two in three Brazilians do. Wikipedia didn't give numbers for other countries, but I would imagine Europe and Australia have similar numbers to the US.
The article wasn't so much weak, as it was in awe of an accident of hindsight. (It only looks "special" because we settled on binary for computers.)
Leibnitz discovered binary math in 1679. His ideas came from the I-Ching, and he believed that the ancient (9000 BC) Chinese knew binary calculus (according to wikipedia).
Wikipedia says Leibnitz got binary from a friend who had been to China and introduced him to the I-Ching, which was developed about 9000BC. Leibnitz also believed that the ancient Chinese had developed calculus (also because of the I-Ching).
Amazing what I learn reading slashdot. It leads me to good wikipedia articles.
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
Never attribute to stupidity that which is adequately explained by greedy self-interest. It's in MS's interests to have everyone buy W8, and they're having a hard time selling it.
Came hoping they have something to do with the Red Light District. Left disappointed.
You'll like my next novel, then. It's about transporting 200 drug-addicted hookers to Mars. Some of it is in my journals already (haven't worked on it in a while).
Only weak humans are domesticated by their cats. My cats obey my orders; they come when called and a sharply worded "OUT!" makes them leave the room. I once taught a cat to play dead when I pointed my finger at him and said "bang". You simply have to understand cat psychology and their instincts and other motivations.
As to hunting, a cat doesn't consider hunting a job. To a cat, chasing things is the funnest thing in the world, even a laser pointer. My cat has made it clear that she understands where the red dot comes from, but she still likes to chase it (the other one is elderly and no longer plays).
Bullshit, they have a union. Workers bargain collectively with the employer, what's wrong with that? Forming and joining unions is a human right. Your kind and your "be glad you have a fucking job, slave" mentality are sickening.
And as the head of a then non-union airline said in the early eighties, "any company that gets a union deserves one." Treat your workers fairly and they won't unionize, it's that simple. Hate unions? Treat your workers like human beings rather than machines or pack animals and you won't have to deal with one.
Not to the end of time, to the end of the hardware's useful life. Patches are for fixing stuff that was shipped broken. There's no excuse to have 1/3 of the computers on the internet unpatched, MS is being incredibly irresponsible.
My car is older than XP, but if there's a dangerous defect the manufacturer will fix it on their dime. MS (yes, and Apple) should be held to the same standard. If my perfectly good hardware came with an OS that endangers your surfing then by God they should be responsible for their bugs and design defects.
I don't recall seeing anything about W7's EOL when I bought this notebook. Anyone buying a computer has to google to find your link they don't even suspect exists?
This behavior by MS is reprehensible. Hardware should not outlive software. EOLing the OS that runs 1/3 of the world's computers shows just how shoddy Microsoft software is.
Slashdot Mirror
I think you jest, but they've been calling computers "electronic brains" since they were brand new in the late forties and had less processing power than a musical Hallmark card. People understand neither computers nor brains, and the ones who understand computers don't understand brains or you wouldn't have really intelligent idiots talking about uploading your brain to a computer.
But there's this this called anthropomorphism that makes it incredibly easy to fool a human into thinking an inanimate object has sentience; look at the carved gods the ancients had. How often do you talk to your computer or car or other machinery when it acts up (heh, "acts up", more anthropomorphism; machines don't act up, they get out of spec)?
And it's dirt simple to make a computer seem sentient. I did it in 1983 on a 1 mz Z-80 with 16k of memory. Ironically, I wrote it to show that machines could NOT think, that it was smoke and mirrors, but people thought that primitive computer and my program could think.
In the future you surely will have people believing that computers and robots are sentient, and morons will certainly call for them to have rights.
Remember, people are easily fooled. Ask James Randi or David Copperfield.
Now lets be really generous and suppose that they will create 1000 new positions, thats at a cost of $10 billion in taxpayer money or about $10,000,000 per position.
Most of that $10b is equipment, all of which has to be manufactured, meaning a lot more than 1000 jobs. And look at all the jobs in related sectors that would have been lost if Obushma had simply let GM die. Do you have any idea how many parts and plant equipment would have gone out of business had GM collapsed?
You are not a smart person, nor a creative thinker.
My IQ has been tested at 150 in the educational system and I have a novel for sale. So yeah, I'm as dumb and uncreative as you are civil.
Since you seem to be incapable of civility, this conversation is over. Fuck off.
Until November of 2006 XP, Linux, and Mac were their only choices. So no, it isn't on them, many of whom rely on software that won't run on anything later than XP. Nine years is a ridiculously short time to support an OS; again, computers last a lot longer than nine years. So no, it isn't on the guy who bought a brand new computer in 2006 and expected it to work seven years later. Hell, my car and TV are both 2002 models manufactured in 2001. Both work just fine and I can replace any part on it with one manufactured by the auto or TV manufacturer. Why should computers be any different?
Planned obsolescence is irresponsible and sociopathic. Those old XP computers that work just fine won't run W7 (and nobody wants W8), the owners should just landfill them? THAT would be irresponsible of them. They aren't responsible for Windows bugs and design defects, Microsoft is.
But I forgot, this is the 21st century where corporations aren't expected to act responsibly or in society's interest.
Red hat is open source, if an out of date copy needs patches it can be patched by a competent programmer. Not so XP. If MS open sourced XP I would have no problem with them EOLing it, someone would patch it because they need the OS.
If someone discovers an exploit it should be patched, period. If they don't want to spend the money they should open-source the "dead" software that 1/3 of the world's computers run on so someone else can patch it.
There are a lot of responsible actions. MS is taking none. It's reprehensible.
Agreed (what moron modded you flamebait??). I've had DSL for years and have no problems with it. TV shows stream nicely (or did, damned Windows computer has gotten slow but the wifi streams to the phone just fine), and that's with BitTorrent and often other stuff running.
Of course, I live alone. I can see where someone with a big family where all ten kids are watching a different YouTube show while playing Angry Birds might need more throughput, but DSL works for me. It might be different if I were still a gamer.
That family's bottleneck will likely be their own router. Internet bottlenecks are often your own wiring.
I find it amusing that people keep trying to sell me shit I don't need, like OMFG SUPER FAST CABLE!!! I simply don't need the speed, what I have works well and doesn't cost a lot.
With Linux, are you ever really DONE installing?
Never have I seen so many Microsoft shills on slashdot in a single day... you should know better than that. Here's how to install Linux on a box with no OS:
1. insert installation media
2. Boot the machine
3. Enter preferences (time zone, passwords, defaults, etc)
4. Let it run for a little while
5. Press "enter".
Done. When patches come down the pike, one click and you're done, no reboots necessary. Now, here's how to install Windows on a box with no OS (sorry, this is for 95, 98, and XP, never installed any newer MS OS)
1. insert installation media ...
2. Boot the machine
3. Enter a preference
4. Wait five minutes
5. Enter another preference
6. Wait five minutes
7. Enter another preference
8. Wait five minutes
9. Enter another preference
10. Wait five minutes
11. Enter another preference
12. Wait five minutes
13. Enter another preference
14. Wait forty five minutes
15. remove media and press "enter"
16. Enter password
17. install a driver
18. reboot
19. install another driver
20. reboot
30 Install antivirus
31 reboot
32 Install an office suite
33 reboot
34 Install another piece of software
35 Reboot
36 Install...
Sorry, Mister Shill, you have it backwards. MS needs more work every single month than it takes to install Linux, which will happily run without fiddling or reboots for years. Some people only boot their Linux boxes when a component fails and they have to shut it down to replace a physical part.
Windows? Your computer is unusable for at least a half an hour from Patch Tuesday, after which a reboot is required. In Linux, one click and the update is done, you just go on working on whatever you were doing while it updates.
Sheesh.
If you're stranded in a cave inhabited by me they better be some damned good books. I hate uninvited visitors.
Yes, roundabouts are safer than stop signs and red lights, but they won't work on roads with more than two lanes, nor can most city intersections be re-engineered for them because there simply isn't enough space.
We have exactly one in Springfield, 12 blocks from the Capitol. There isn't enough room anywhere else.
Oh, for fuck's sake, GM is opening five new factories in the US this year and hiring a shitload of workers, they can't keep the cars on the lots they're selling them so fast; last night the TV said one was sold every 40 seconds. What the taxpayer "lost" by this is nothing, since all those now-employed people are taxpayers, as well as the ones who would have been out of work if GM had collapsed. This is increased revenue, not decreased revenue.
Can't libertarians do math?
Until the 19th century or so, these were just semi-wild animals that got access to our barns and homes to kill rodents, but they would claw you the moment you tried to touch them.
Citation BADLY needed, wikipedia disagrees with you completely (it also says that this "news" is 14 years old).
I'd say my wikipedia citation trumps your personal assumptions, which wikipedia shows is utterly and completely false.
Nobody gets a union they don't deserve, whether a company or its workers. Treat your workers right and they won't unionize.
Unions are ridiculously powerful in the US
They were sixty years ago, today they're pretty toothless. Look at Hostess, the union gave up concession after concession while management was running the business into the ground and "earning" multimillion dollar bonuses after all the workers were fired and lost their pensions. They were the victims, not the villains.
Employers who deal with unions have to have union approval for practically anything they do
Which is hammered out in contract negotiations. Don't blame the unions if they have better negotiators than you've hired, boss.
Personally, I prefer smaller negotiating groups like worker councils and interest groups
Of course you would, so would every other business executive, Mitt.
You guys must not be submitting very good stories then. Roughly a third of my submissions were accepted. I've had the same problem as Socatume, but I've also had mistakes corrected before posting. Usually, though, they don't even bother reading it, if it's upvoted in the firehose they usually just post it without looking at it.
Only one in ten Americans have that disease, where two in three Brazilians do. Wikipedia didn't give numbers for other countries, but I would imagine Europe and Australia have similar numbers to the US.
The article wasn't so much weak, as it was in awe of an accident of hindsight. (It only looks "special" because we settled on binary for computers.)
Leibnitz discovered binary math in 1679. His ideas came from the I-Ching, and he believed that the ancient (9000 BC) Chinese knew binary calculus (according to wikipedia).
Apparently, binary math isn't new.
Wikipedia says Leibnitz got binary from a friend who had been to China and introduced him to the I-Ching, which was developed about 9000BC. Leibnitz also believed that the ancient Chinese had developed calculus (also because of the I-Ching).
Amazing what I learn reading slashdot. It leads me to good wikipedia articles.
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
Never attribute to stupidity that which is adequately explained by greedy self-interest. It's in MS's interests to have everyone buy W8, and they're having a hard time selling it.
Came hoping they have something to do with the Red Light District. Left disappointed.
You'll like my next novel, then. It's about transporting 200 drug-addicted hookers to Mars. Some of it is in my journals already (haven't worked on it in a while).
The howling isn't that often. I have to agree about male cats, unless you neuter them before they reach puberty your house will STINK.
And remember, if you can't afford new furniture every year, you can't afford a cat (you should see how shredded my 5 year old couch is).
Only weak humans are domesticated by their cats. My cats obey my orders; they come when called and a sharply worded "OUT!" makes them leave the room. I once taught a cat to play dead when I pointed my finger at him and said "bang". You simply have to understand cat psychology and their instincts and other motivations.
As to hunting, a cat doesn't consider hunting a job. To a cat, chasing things is the funnest thing in the world, even a laser pointer. My cat has made it clear that she understands where the red dot comes from, but she still likes to chase it (the other one is elderly and no longer plays).
Bullshit, they have a union. Workers bargain collectively with the employer, what's wrong with that? Forming and joining unions is a human right. Your kind and your "be glad you have a fucking job, slave" mentality are sickening.
And as the head of a then non-union airline said in the early eighties, "any company that gets a union deserves one." Treat your workers fairly and they won't unionize, it's that simple. Hate unions? Treat your workers like human beings rather than machines or pack animals and you won't have to deal with one.
Not to the end of time, to the end of the hardware's useful life. Patches are for fixing stuff that was shipped broken. There's no excuse to have 1/3 of the computers on the internet unpatched, MS is being incredibly irresponsible.
My car is older than XP, but if there's a dangerous defect the manufacturer will fix it on their dime. MS (yes, and Apple) should be held to the same standard. If my perfectly good hardware came with an OS that endangers your surfing then by God they should be responsible for their bugs and design defects.
"End of time"... you must work for Microsoft.
You can only do that if management allows it. Most of us being forced to use that POS DBMS would love to.
MS Access is toward the top of the list of reasons I'm glad I'm retiring this February.
MS may make exceptions for the enterprise, but I can't find a small notebook running anything but W8 and Chrome. So my guess is they're stuck with W8.
I don't recall seeing anything about W7's EOL when I bought this notebook. Anyone buying a computer has to google to find your link they don't even suspect exists?
This behavior by MS is reprehensible. Hardware should not outlive software. EOLing the OS that runs 1/3 of the world's computers shows just how shoddy Microsoft software is.