Perhaps, but Gentoo grants me more useful freedoms. Like the ability to build from source more recent software (like the most recent fedora is still ways behind on Gnome for instance), or configure it how I want (like to have MP3 playback). Actually there's nothing stopping you from compiling and running a Gnome from source on Fedora. When I upgraded from Fedora 4 to Fedora 5 I was playing mp3s in xmms within about three commands. Other than rampant elitism or the need in an engineering environment to have an extreme level of control over every bit of disk space and processor time I really can't think of a good reason to use Gentoo over a binary based distro. Of course, this IS slashdot, so rampant elitism is probably considered an excellent reason to do anything.
I know this thread's a few days old but I wanted to respond to this anyways. It's entirely likely that your school could not afford the new science/math program at least in part due to the fact that Wal-Mart employees suck funding from the government through social welfare programs and do not pay their share in taxes for education and other government provided services. I'm happy for you that Wal-Mart gave your school some money but it's important not to be blinded by a one time event but to rather look at the entire lifetime and aggregate activities of a corporation.
I just went to Dell's site and scoped out their offerings. Even in a $359 package, Microsoft Works is "included in [the] price". That package does not include Microsoft Word. To get Word, you have to upgrade to a $79 Works Suite. Obviously, Dell could offer OpenOffice as an alternative to their default Works package and pocket the difference.
Of course, I have a sneaky suspicion that the minimal Works package is an attempt to get users to purchase Microsoft Word at a minimum. They probably hope to convince consumers to purchase Microsoft Office Professional "because they might need it". Obviously, having a full office suite available at no charge might cut into those profits. Especially since OOo has a much better reputation than the WordPerfect, Claris Works, and Lotus Suite products that PC producers used to bundle. So they're relying on Microsoft to provide the (if you'll excuse the colorful language) "shitty" office suite to convince consumers to upgrade. You're completely missing the potential that Microsoft pays Dell to include Works on each machine as cheap advertising for Office.
Simple, by putting your money where your mouth is. Support your local businesses. Support businesses which treat their employees well. Try to buy American made whenever you can. I dunno if I'll get in trouble for a plug but I have heard a lot of good things and read many articles about Costco being responsible corporation by offering its employees fair wages, benefits, etc. I try to shop there whenever I can and avoid Wal Mart whenever possible.
Microsoft Works is one of the affore-mentioned applications installed by the OEMs. Not all of them do, but most PCs categorized as 'Home/Personal' come with it in my experience.
I've found it to be an amazing tool for development and testing. We use free VMWare at work for this sort of thing all the time. It's really a dream and has saved us a ton of cash on hardware.
That will only updated your system clock. It will not fix any date calculations in software (now - 1500). The time will be wrong. That's what all the patches are about. Updating your system clock is easy, it's making sure the time calculations show the appropriate time is what everyone is worried about.
That's exactly right. When a business changes to a new application it's not as if the business tells employees that they can get by completing 80% as much for the next few weeks. It's basically "Yes it's new and we expect you to be at 100% speed immediately, deal with it." And it sucks for the employee for a week or two while they have to semi-rush or work a few extra hours but it's not the end of the world. Typically the same salary IT person that has always been there gets stuck answering all the questions. The only additional cost is anyone involved who might be paid hourly, they might have to work a few extra hours. In my mind, it's not the end of the world.
I see the exact opposite. The company I work for pays non-justgraduated developers $75-90k. According to salary.com that puts us in the 85-95 percentile. However, we are having a hard time keeping employees because they are leaving for more money. It's crazy. It's like a dream world where money fairies are dropping out of the skies dumping cash on developers in this area.
You obviously don't work much in maintenance programming. I'll take simple maintainable code over meets the specs any day. If it doesn't meet the spec exactly but is maintainable I can fix it. If it isn't maintainable then I can't fix any problems and you'll double your time to market for future feature requests. I guess it all depends on whether you're getting paid by the hour.
It may be pure apologetics but the explanation I've seen about Pluto getting warmer is somewhat like the reason it's warmest on Earth just after noon (1-2pm). If this explanation is true, we should see it begin to cool again within a fairly short time (perhaps years? I dunno).
In all fairness, he did specify end user. And frankly as every person in the computer business knows (developers and IT) the end user doesn't give a shit about what makes your life easier.
Well, if the license becomes GPL3 then the userland stuff WILL BE gnu utiltities. If anything you'll have the choice, or the two will be combined together like some sort of inbred half-cousin. It'll be exciting. =)
pre-loaded windows systems come full of advertisement crap such as free AOL installs which will dramatically decrease the cost of the PC to you and me. This is one of the many ways PC manufacturers keep the cost of the machine down. It's very likely that the advertising revenue is greater than the pittance they pay for the OS in their ginormous OEM contract so it doesn't surprise me at all. There won't be any advertising software in that machine with no OS and there's unlikely to be advertising software pre-loaded onto a linux machine. It's unlikely to be a major conspiracy, occam's razor and what not. Alternatively, maybe they could start selling PCs with a giant AOL logo on the side of the case. I'm sure that would go over well.
In my experience Photoshop will chew through my 1GB of RAM quite easily. It does have a pretty advanced disk caching mechanism so usually it will perform about the same with less memory, but still. Like running a database it will consume as much memory as you let it for maximum performance.
Look, no one is saying that we don't need to investigate potential terrorist cells in the U.S. or abroad for that matter. I'm just suggesting that the sensational OMGPONIES that occurred immediately after 9/11 is over and we need to get back to reality. And yes, I'm part of the "the war on drugs is stupid" crowd. And no, I do not use illicit drugs. I even avoid prescription and over the counters if I can. I hear aspirin is more deadly than terrorism.
As for the headline about Tel-Aviv, well.. that's a great headline to have. I'm sure there's plenty of people interested in hearing about it. The difference between you and me is that I don't see a story about a bombing in Tel-Aviv and immediately think to myself that the FBI should have greater powers to secretly capture data on citizens who have not had any charges brought against them.
You're right, it doesn't make sense but not for the reason you're likely professing. Terrorism is not a threat. People need to see that in print more. Terrorism is not a threat. More people die from the use of non-prescription anti-inflammatory drugs such as Aspirin every year in the U.S. than have EVER died from terrorism on U.S. soil. Seriously, think about that for a minute: Aspirin kills more people than terrorism in this country. If the government has more powers to go after drug cartels than terrorists then the solution should be to trim the powers available to go after drug cartels, not grant more powers to after some other random type of criminal.
/Yes, I know that the drug cartels you were referring to have nothing to do with Aspirin. I merely used them as an example because Aspirin is generally considered 'harmless' by most people.
Your point is valid so I don't intend this as a flame at all. We're a huge company with a multi-billion dollar budget. Our network IT staff (network only, not dbas, sysadmins, etc) is comprised of like 6 people. They can easily afford the certificate.
Maybe, but my portfolio just took a dump on the order of about 4% of total value yesterday. It will likely take several months to get back that single day's loss. If I were near retirement and had $1 million in there I'd be pretty upset at losing $40k in a day (almost a year's worth of retirement money). This of course ignores the fact that at or near retirement my money would all be in bonds for the most part and I'd be fairly impervious to these spikes...
I call shenanigans. We use an SSL VPN solution through active-X or applet (the VPN router supports both) at my office. The SSL certificate we use is invalid and Firefox, Opera, Konqueror, etc. disallow me to view the page even after I've attempted manually importing the certificate. However, IE let's me right through with a simple warning. For those few of us without access to IE at home, that means we can't use the VPN. All they'd have to do is get a proper certificate and everything would be solved. But the response I get is "We can't support every flavor" or "We don't support linux." Nevermind the gaping security hole which is just waiting for someone to man-in-the-middle our VPN to gain access to important data files. This sort of response is typical to every IT department I've ever come across. I realize you may be nice and friendly and will at least attempt to be helpful but that makes you not in the 'norm'.
Slashdot Mirror
The issue with H20 in this instance is that it's terribly difficult to get the Hydrogen atoms away from the Oxygen atom. The bonds are quite strong.
I know this thread's a few days old but I wanted to respond to this anyways. It's entirely likely that your school could not afford the new science/math program at least in part due to the fact that Wal-Mart employees suck funding from the government through social welfare programs and do not pay their share in taxes for education and other government provided services. I'm happy for you that Wal-Mart gave your school some money but it's important not to be blinded by a one time event but to rather look at the entire lifetime and aggregate activities of a corporation.
Of course, I have a sneaky suspicion that the minimal Works package is an attempt to get users to purchase Microsoft Word at a minimum. They probably hope to convince consumers to purchase Microsoft Office Professional "because they might need it". Obviously, having a full office suite available at no charge might cut into those profits. Especially since OOo has a much better reputation than the WordPerfect, Claris Works, and Lotus Suite products that PC producers used to bundle. So they're relying on Microsoft to provide the (if you'll excuse the colorful language) "shitty" office suite to convince consumers to upgrade. You're completely missing the potential that Microsoft pays Dell to include Works on each machine as cheap advertising for Office.
Simple, by putting your money where your mouth is. Support your local businesses. Support businesses which treat their employees well. Try to buy American made whenever you can. I dunno if I'll get in trouble for a plug but I have heard a lot of good things and read many articles about Costco being responsible corporation by offering its employees fair wages, benefits, etc. I try to shop there whenever I can and avoid Wal Mart whenever possible.
No, but I could foresee the eventual application to the venerable 'flying cars.'
Microsoft Works is one of the affore-mentioned applications installed by the OEMs. Not all of them do, but most PCs categorized as 'Home/Personal' come with it in my experience.
Where's the FARK.com 'obvious' tag when you need it?
I've found it to be an amazing tool for development and testing. We use free VMWare at work for this sort of thing all the time. It's really a dream and has saved us a ton of cash on hardware.
That will only updated your system clock. It will not fix any date calculations in software (now - 1500). The time will be wrong. That's what all the patches are about. Updating your system clock is easy, it's making sure the time calculations show the appropriate time is what everyone is worried about.
That's exactly right. When a business changes to a new application it's not as if the business tells employees that they can get by completing 80% as much for the next few weeks. It's basically "Yes it's new and we expect you to be at 100% speed immediately, deal with it." And it sucks for the employee for a week or two while they have to semi-rush or work a few extra hours but it's not the end of the world. Typically the same salary IT person that has always been there gets stuck answering all the questions. The only additional cost is anyone involved who might be paid hourly, they might have to work a few extra hours. In my mind, it's not the end of the world.
Just outside of Orlando.
I see the exact opposite. The company I work for pays non-justgraduated developers $75-90k. According to salary.com that puts us in the 85-95 percentile. However, we are having a hard time keeping employees because they are leaving for more money. It's crazy. It's like a dream world where money fairies are dropping out of the skies dumping cash on developers in this area.
You obviously don't work much in maintenance programming. I'll take simple maintainable code over meets the specs any day. If it doesn't meet the spec exactly but is maintainable I can fix it. If it isn't maintainable then I can't fix any problems and you'll double your time to market for future feature requests. I guess it all depends on whether you're getting paid by the hour.
It may be pure apologetics but the explanation I've seen about Pluto getting warmer is somewhat like the reason it's warmest on Earth just after noon (1-2pm). If this explanation is true, we should see it begin to cool again within a fairly short time (perhaps years? I dunno).
In all fairness, he did specify end user. And frankly as every person in the computer business knows (developers and IT) the end user doesn't give a shit about what makes your life easier.
Well, if the license becomes GPL3 then the userland stuff WILL BE gnu utiltities. If anything you'll have the choice, or the two will be combined together like some sort of inbred half-cousin. It'll be exciting. =)
pre-loaded windows systems come full of advertisement crap such as free AOL installs which will dramatically decrease the cost of the PC to you and me. This is one of the many ways PC manufacturers keep the cost of the machine down. It's very likely that the advertising revenue is greater than the pittance they pay for the OS in their ginormous OEM contract so it doesn't surprise me at all. There won't be any advertising software in that machine with no OS and there's unlikely to be advertising software pre-loaded onto a linux machine. It's unlikely to be a major conspiracy, occam's razor and what not. Alternatively, maybe they could start selling PCs with a giant AOL logo on the side of the case. I'm sure that would go over well.
In my experience Photoshop will chew through my 1GB of RAM quite easily. It does have a pretty advanced disk caching mechanism so usually it will perform about the same with less memory, but still. Like running a database it will consume as much memory as you let it for maximum performance.
Look, no one is saying that we don't need to investigate potential terrorist cells in the U.S. or abroad for that matter. I'm just suggesting that the sensational OMGPONIES that occurred immediately after 9/11 is over and we need to get back to reality. And yes, I'm part of the "the war on drugs is stupid" crowd. And no, I do not use illicit drugs. I even avoid prescription and over the counters if I can. I hear aspirin is more deadly than terrorism.
As for the headline about Tel-Aviv, well.. that's a great headline to have. I'm sure there's plenty of people interested in hearing about it. The difference between you and me is that I don't see a story about a bombing in Tel-Aviv and immediately think to myself that the FBI should have greater powers to secretly capture data on citizens who have not had any charges brought against them.
I'm not trying to flame you or anything but I'd be interested in press releases or anything of the sort where a media giant expresses that sentiment.
/genuinely curious
You're right, it doesn't make sense but not for the reason you're likely professing. Terrorism is not a threat. People need to see that in print more. Terrorism is not a threat. More people die from the use of non-prescription anti-inflammatory drugs such as Aspirin every year in the U.S. than have EVER died from terrorism on U.S. soil. Seriously, think about that for a minute: Aspirin kills more people than terrorism in this country. If the government has more powers to go after drug cartels than terrorists then the solution should be to trim the powers available to go after drug cartels, not grant more powers to after some other random type of criminal.
/Yes, I know that the drug cartels you were referring to have nothing to do with Aspirin. I merely used them as an example because Aspirin is generally considered 'harmless' by most people.
Your point is valid so I don't intend this as a flame at all. We're a huge company with a multi-billion dollar budget. Our network IT staff (network only, not dbas, sysadmins, etc) is comprised of like 6 people. They can easily afford the certificate.
Maybe, but my portfolio just took a dump on the order of about 4% of total value yesterday. It will likely take several months to get back that single day's loss. If I were near retirement and had $1 million in there I'd be pretty upset at losing $40k in a day (almost a year's worth of retirement money). This of course ignores the fact that at or near retirement my money would all be in bonds for the most part and I'd be fairly impervious to these spikes...
I call shenanigans. We use an SSL VPN solution through active-X or applet (the VPN router supports both) at my office. The SSL certificate we use is invalid and Firefox, Opera, Konqueror, etc. disallow me to view the page even after I've attempted manually importing the certificate. However, IE let's me right through with a simple warning. For those few of us without access to IE at home, that means we can't use the VPN. All they'd have to do is get a proper certificate and everything would be solved. But the response I get is "We can't support every flavor" or "We don't support linux." Nevermind the gaping security hole which is just waiting for someone to man-in-the-middle our VPN to gain access to important data files. This sort of response is typical to every IT department I've ever come across. I realize you may be nice and friendly and will at least attempt to be helpful but that makes you not in the 'norm'.