Seriously, how often do regular people install Windows? Once in their lifetime?
As for MS propaganda, they're going to have to explain what a browser is for those who have no idea, and will likely tell the user that IE was the default in previous versions of Windows.
They would not have to tell people that IE was the default, no.
It's not just going to be used by 'regular people' - admins will use the same software, although they might have something like Group Policy for a large network. And telling people what the default used to be would be a good idea for the user who has no idea what they used before. Even if it's not, it's certainly a justifiable one, so I doubt the EU would take MS up on it.
Well, if the EU is smart, they will impose some basic rules on the ballot screen:
1) No default selection
2) Random order of displayed browser choices
3) No MS propaganda on the screen.
That should do it.
Random order seems annoying and unpredictable. Alphabetical would also make more sense, though it would give Google Chrome an advantage.
As for MS propaganda, they're going to have to explain what a browser is for those who have no idea, and will likely tell the user that IE was the default in previous versions of Windows. That's not propaganda, but would have the same effect.
I'll admit that it is extremely difficult and not worth the effort. The point I was trying to make was that getting the discount counts against the no. of Windows users. At best you'd come out neutral, but if enough people do so it becomes more profitable for the OEMs to include Linux as a default option than to spend the extra labour handling refunds.
Given that Slashdot deals with more Linux users than most sites, you'd think they would have fixed this problem by now. How hard is it to modify the newline based on client OS?
I think that the best way to do this would be some kind of battery bank / fuel cell / energy storage. The customer charges it at night, and it reduces the load during the day. While this would be expensive, it would complement a house with solar power well, since they typically already have a battery bank. The other advantage is that because you simply draw the power at night into a reservoir, there is no way to monitor usage.
It really depends on the genre, and the quality of the dub. For native English speakers, anime with a lot of action or very subtle overtones in dialog are typically more accessible in English. For others however, it depends on the quality of the dub.
While I agree with the sentiment, to be fair I have never had an 'upgrade' of *any* OS go well. Last time I tried to upgrade Ubuntu from Intrepid to Jaunty, I couldn't get the installer to even start. In the end I ended up burning the ISO and doing a fresh install. That said, backing up a profile under a Linux is *a lot* easier then under Windows, and I can reinstall all my apps and do all the updates with a single (admittedly long) BASH command.
You know, there are a lot of people who don't have a problem combining religion and science
and there are those who think.
Religion and science are necessarily mutually exclusive, especially if the religion is one whose concepts are purely in relation to the metaphysical. e.g. science doesn't really have any say in morals. Similarly, there are religions which accept scientific concepts or even apply similar logic to their own beliefs in an attempt to gain a better understanding.
Religion doesn't mean blind faith in something in the face of contradictory evidence. It means a set of beliefs regarding the metaphysical. One example of this is Roman Catholicism - the Church accepts the Big Bang theory and Darwinism, and merely interprets Genesis in a symbolic fashion. Some of the technologies it rejects (e.g. abortion) are controversial even when religion is not involved, simply because they require us to define the limits of humanity.
I doubt it, given the significant overhead of ensuring that write access to the array remains synchronous. You'd be better off parallelizing QuickSort, since you get the same advantages, but without the synchronization issues.
Not quite true. The client profile cuts out a lot of useful functionality (e.g. LINQ), to the point where you might as well target.NET 2.0 instead.
That said, the total size needed for an online installation of 3.5 SP1 on Vista is ~50 MB (since it comes preinstalled with 3.0), and mono is less than 20 MB. The full 200 MB is only required for WinXP systems that don't have any version of the framework installed at all.
The machine I'm currently on is a single core machine running XP (1.6 GHz if I'm not mistaken...so lazy I don't even want to pull up the specs!). I've been using Chrome for months on this thing and it's lightning fast. Your concern over speed is unfounded.
I use Chrome as well, but he's talking about Firefox. Firefox isn't anywhere near Chrome in terms of speed, they're only just catching up. So the GP is quite justified is considering the downsides of this.
Slashdot Mirror
'Has anyone tried installing Linux on an alarm clock?'
I have. I ended up configuring an old Linux PC to act as an alarm clock.
And in response to your post, would you really prefer them to run Windows?
Posting to undo accidental mod.
(Why isn't there a button for this?)
This might be a bit easier to say:
sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=1
Why on earth would you want to copy it? Let me know how deletion goes :)
Put it in a freezer for a bit...
---
For those who don't get it, the above post is humour, not ignorance.
They already have, or at least something similar:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steal_This_Film
Seriously, how often do regular people install Windows? Once in their lifetime?
They would not have to tell people that IE was the default, no.
It's not just going to be used by 'regular people' - admins will use the same software, although they might have something like Group Policy for a large network.
And telling people what the default used to be would be a good idea for the user who has no idea what they used before. Even if it's not, it's certainly a justifiable one, so I doubt the EU would take MS up on it.
Well, if the EU is smart, they will impose some basic rules on the ballot screen:
1) No default selection
2) Random order of displayed browser choices
3) No MS propaganda on the screen.
That should do it.
Random order seems annoying and unpredictable. Alphabetical would also make more sense, though it would give Google Chrome an advantage.
As for MS propaganda, they're going to have to explain what a browser is for those who have no idea, and will likely tell the user that IE was the default in previous versions of Windows. That's not propaganda, but would have the same effect.
I'll admit that it is extremely difficult and not worth the effort. The point I was trying to make was that getting the discount counts against the no. of Windows users. At best you'd come out neutral, but if enough people do so it becomes more profitable for the OEMs to include Linux as a default option than to spend the extra labour handling refunds.
Why not ask for a refund on the cost of Windows?
They forgot to write out the DMCA in blood.
Given that Slashdot deals with more Linux users than most sites, you'd think they would have fixed this problem by now. How hard is it to modify the newline based on client OS?
No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title."
Wait, that does mean that it's OK to crack it if it isn't effective?
http://xkcd.com/177/
I think that the best way to do this would be some kind of battery bank / fuel cell / energy storage. The customer charges it at night, and it reduces the load during the day.
While this would be expensive, it would complement a house with solar power well, since they typically already have a battery bank. The other advantage is that because you simply draw the power at night into a reservoir, there is no way to monitor usage.
For those asking for proof, here's one example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_feynman#Challenger_disaster
It really depends on the genre, and the quality of the dub. For native English speakers, anime with a lot of action or very subtle overtones in dialog are typically more accessible in English. For others however, it depends on the quality of the dub.
While I agree with the sentiment, to be fair I have never had an 'upgrade' of *any* OS go well.
Last time I tried to upgrade Ubuntu from Intrepid to Jaunty, I couldn't get the installer to even start. In the end I ended up burning the ISO and doing a fresh install.
That said, backing up a profile under a Linux is *a lot* easier then under Windows, and I can reinstall all my apps and do all the updates with a single (admittedly long) BASH command.
You know, there are a lot of people who don't have a problem combining religion and science
and there are those who think.
Religion and science are necessarily mutually exclusive, especially if the religion is one whose concepts are purely in relation to the metaphysical. e.g. science doesn't really have any say in morals. Similarly, there are religions which accept scientific concepts or even apply similar logic to their own beliefs in an attempt to gain a better understanding.
Religion doesn't mean blind faith in something in the face of contradictory evidence. It means a set of beliefs regarding the metaphysical. One example of this is Roman Catholicism - the Church accepts the Big Bang theory and Darwinism, and merely interprets Genesis in a symbolic fashion. Some of the technologies it rejects (e.g. abortion) are controversial even when religion is not involved, simply because they require us to define the limits of humanity.
DISCLAIMER: I am a Roman Catholic.
I doubt it, given the significant overhead of ensuring that write access to the array remains synchronous.
You'd be better off parallelizing QuickSort, since you get the same advantages, but without the synchronization issues.
But would user analysts spend their spare time analysing users like hackers spend their spare time hacking?
I'm pretty sure there are laws against that sort of thing...
200+ is for all the developer goo.
Not quite true. The client profile cuts out a lot of useful functionality (e.g. LINQ), to the point where you might as well target .NET 2.0 instead.
That said, the total size needed for an online installation of 3.5 SP1 on Vista is ~50 MB (since it comes preinstalled with 3.0), and mono is less than 20 MB.
The full 200 MB is only required for WinXP systems that don't have any version of the framework installed at all.
Throw it into an active volcano. You can worry about retrieval later.
It amazes me how many people here on slashdot don't understand the differences and distinctions of multi-process vs. multi-threaded.
It's a programmer thing. To everyone else both are parallelization. Remember, this is news for nerds, not programmers.
The machine I'm currently on is a single core machine running XP (1.6 GHz if I'm not mistaken...so lazy I don't even want to pull up the specs!). I've been using Chrome for months on this thing and it's lightning fast. Your concern over speed is unfounded.
I use Chrome as well, but he's talking about Firefox. Firefox isn't anywhere near Chrome in terms of speed, they're only just catching up. So the GP is quite justified is considering the downsides of this.