I'd venture that plain ASCII email is better than one with a Word, or any word-processor, attachment. It uses >far less bandwidth, can be read immediately, and can be viewed on any platform, even a cellphone.
I just want to drive, not mess with the engine. That doesn't mean I'd accept a car with a locked hood that could only be opened by the dealer.
Re:Unfortunately, an end to wars
on
The Drone War
·
· Score: 2
I'd go even further, and suggest that if the Palestinians had taken a King/Ghandi approach, they would have had their own state (possibly in some sort of federation with Israel) several years ago. Aside from a minority of fanatics, I'd guess that most Israelis just want an end to the violence.
Well, there was a study several years ago that concluded that, under some situations, driving was safer than flying.
I turned out that the study was paid for by the auto companies, and that 'some situations' meant very short trips. (I guess it does seem reasonable that it's safer to drive to the local grocery store than to fly there.)
Why does everyone assume that those we contact will be peaceful? What if we bring ourselves to the attention of the Kzinti, or their even nastier cousins, the Kilrathi?
Exactly. Even though we're in a metropolitan area, the phone company refuses to get DSL to our neighborhood. That leaves cable service from ATT, the same company that keeps raising our cable-TV rates, and wants to charge $40/mo.
OTOH, I've been with the same ISP (Hevanet) for about 7 years. It's only $13/month; they're HIGHLY reliable; they provide a BSD login; and they've always been friendly towards 'alternative' OS's. I just can't bear the thought of switching away, and then hearing the usual "Sorry nothing's working but it's your fault because you're not running Windows" excuses.
And don't forget me, a 40-something. My comparison of GB and PC/Windows gaming:
GB: Plop in cartridge, hit ON switch, and start playing about 3 seconds later.
PC/Win98: Plop in CD. Wait 10 seconds. Click PLAY; wait another 30 seconds. Play 10 minutes; wait another 60 seconds while machine crashes and reboots.
Solaris reboot times? Who cares? I used SparcStations for about seven years. Other than during power failures, the only time I had to reboot was when I accidentally kicked the disk-drive under my desk.
Actually... when I worked for a semiconductor firm a couple years ago, someone seriously suggested writing a place-and-route game for FPGA's. This is an area that's difficult for software to do optimally, and is highly puzzle-like.
"it is hard to sell OSS to PHBs that are used to paying serious cash for something as simple as email."
Funny, isn't it? I've always wondered, though, if the PHB would still be so willing to spend that cash if it were coming out of his salary, instead of his company's accounts.
Young [lad/lass] was born with a great power, but hardly knows how to use it. When [lad/lass]'s village is overrun by [evil bad guys], hero must rise to his/her potential to defeat them.
I recently bought my first CD writer, and was trying to decide whether I should put it in the Windows98 PC or the Linux box. I knew that with Windows, the software would be easy to install from the included CD. But I also guessed, from my previous experience, that it would likely be bloated, and also include a lot of junkware/advertising, plus have the sort of problems you've described.
So I decided to give myself a little challenge by placing it in the Linux box.
Turned out to be fairly simple. It did require modifiying a couple config. files by hand ('lilo.conf' and 'fstab'), but the HOWTO explained this clearly. The only difficult task was choosing the best CD-burning GUI from about a dozen choices. My favorite was 'xcdroast', but there were many others that were capable of doing the job.
Are you still paranoid if they really ARE out to get you?
Passport, if successful, puts a LOT of power in Microsoft's hands. Suppose you flame them on an online forum like Slashdot, and you find that you can no longer pay your mortgage or your phone bill? From their point-of-view, they have every right to refuse your business.
And that is the problem. If VISA owned you local grocer, would they still accept other credit cards?
Analogies aside, MS doesn't have to own your electric company; they just need to make a deal with them. And since it's quite likely that the electric company is already relying on MS software, the possibility isn't all that farfetched.
Really, is a $40,000 Mercedes all that much better than a $16,000 VW? It used to be that the more expensive cars had more advanced features like fuel-injection and ABS; but those are standard on almost all cars now.
Yet I know people who wouldn't even consider buying the cheaper car, even if they have to go into debt for the more expensive brand.
Maybe now the Z80 is just for embedded devices. But from about 1980-1984, I worked at a place that sold Z80-based word-processors (when a 'word-processor' was a physical box). We had all the usual features for that era, such as footnotes, spell-checking, mail-merge, and even a builtin spreadsheet.
I'd disagree a bit. My guess is that marketing drives the MS culture. So the engineer who comes up with a pretty-looking GUI, like those fading menus, gets the promotion and notoriety; while the one who figures out a way to make Windows crash less gets passed by.
Slashdot Mirror
And let me guess: They send them out as attachments in mass mailings to employees?
How about converting them to HTML and then send the link out?
I'd venture that plain ASCII email is better than one with a Word, or any word-processor, attachment. It uses >far less bandwidth, can be read immediately, and can be viewed on any platform, even a cellphone.
I must point out that I didn't come up with the above on my own. In fact, I think (though not positive) that it came from RMS.
I just want to drive, not mess with the engine. That doesn't mean I'd accept a car with a locked hood that could only be opened by the dealer.
I'd go even further, and suggest that if the Palestinians had taken a King/Ghandi approach, they would have had their own state (possibly in some sort of federation with Israel) several years ago. Aside from a minority of fanatics, I'd guess that most Israelis just want an end to the violence.
Well, there was a study several years ago that concluded that, under some situations, driving was safer than flying.
I turned out that the study was paid for by the auto companies, and that 'some situations' meant very short trips. (I guess it does seem reasonable that it's safer to drive to the local grocery store than to fly there.)
Why does everyone assume that those we contact will be peaceful? What if we bring ourselves to the attention of the Kzinti, or their even nastier cousins, the Kilrathi?
Exactly. Even though we're in a metropolitan area, the phone company refuses to get DSL to our neighborhood. That leaves cable service from ATT, the same company that keeps raising our cable-TV rates, and wants to charge $40/mo.
OTOH, I've been with the same ISP (Hevanet) for about 7 years. It's only $13/month; they're HIGHLY reliable; they provide a BSD login; and they've always been friendly towards 'alternative' OS's. I just can't bear the thought of switching away, and then hearing the usual "Sorry nothing's working but it's your fault because you're not running Windows" excuses.
And don't forget me, a 40-something. My comparison of GB and PC/Windows gaming:
GB: Plop in cartridge, hit ON switch, and start playing about 3 seconds later.
PC/Win98: Plop in CD. Wait 10 seconds. Click PLAY; wait another 30 seconds. Play 10 minutes; wait another 60 seconds while machine crashes and reboots.
Solaris reboot times? Who cares? I used SparcStations for about seven years. Other than during power failures, the only time I had to reboot was when I accidentally kicked the disk-drive under my desk.
Just wondering... when you call their customer support, do they tell you to reinstall Windows?
Well, there is Ultima 7, although you have to own a copy of the orignal DOS version to play.
Actually... when I worked for a semiconductor firm a couple years ago, someone seriously suggested writing a place-and-route game for FPGA's. This is an area that's difficult for software to do optimally, and is highly puzzle-like.
By your reasoning, I'm only qualified to work in jobs that require a sliderule.
Kind of funny and ironic to see this sort of thing work against Microsoft.
"it is hard to sell OSS to PHBs that are used to paying serious cash for something as simple as email."
Funny, isn't it? I've always wondered, though, if the PHB would still be so willing to spend that cash if it were coming out of his salary, instead of his company's accounts.
Young [lad/lass] was born with a great power, but hardly knows how to use it. When [lad/lass]'s village is overrun by [evil bad guys], hero must rise to his/her potential to defeat them.
I recently bought my first CD writer, and was trying to decide whether I should put it in the Windows98 PC or the Linux box. I knew that with Windows, the software would be easy to install from the included CD. But I also guessed, from my previous experience, that it would likely be bloated, and also include a lot of junkware/advertising, plus have the sort of problems you've described.
So I decided to give myself a little challenge by placing it in the Linux box.
Turned out to be fairly simple. It did require modifiying a couple config. files by hand ('lilo.conf' and 'fstab'), but the HOWTO explained this clearly. The only difficult task was choosing the best CD-burning GUI from about a dozen choices. My favorite was 'xcdroast', but there were many others that were capable of doing the job.
Are you still paranoid if they really ARE out to get you?
Passport, if successful, puts a LOT of power in Microsoft's hands. Suppose you flame them on an online forum like Slashdot, and you find that you can no longer pay your mortgage or your phone bill? From their point-of-view, they have every right to refuse your business.
"MS owns Passport. MS owns the Zone."
And that is the problem. If VISA owned you local grocer, would they still accept other credit cards?
Analogies aside, MS doesn't have to own your electric company; they just need to make a deal with them. And since it's quite likely that the electric company is already relying on MS software, the possibility isn't all that farfetched.
... if all the grocery stores in your city required Passport? How about the phone company or electric utility?
Client: Requesting 'kword'. .5Mb.
Server: Kword binary: 1.2Mb; Kword source
Sending source.
Client: Source received. Unpacking. Compiling.
Done.
Really, is a $40,000 Mercedes all that much better than a $16,000 VW? It used to be that the more expensive cars had more advanced features like fuel-injection and ABS; but those are standard on almost all cars now.
Yet I know people who wouldn't even consider buying the cheaper car, even if they have to go into debt for the more expensive brand.
Maybe now the Z80 is just for embedded devices. But from about 1980-1984, I worked at a place that sold Z80-based word-processors (when a 'word-processor' was a physical box). We had all the usual features for that era, such as footnotes, spell-checking, mail-merge, and even a builtin spreadsheet.
And it was all written in hand-coded assembler.
I'd disagree a bit. My guess is that marketing drives the MS culture. So the engineer who comes up with a pretty-looking GUI, like those fading menus, gets the promotion and notoriety; while the one who figures out a way to make Windows crash less gets passed by.