Yes, because sudo is only used rarely every once in a while (when you do some system-wide installation or configuration) whereas UAC opens up in Windows at the slightest event ("You're going to sneeze. Cancel or Allow ?") Presumably you're quoting off the 'Get a Mac' ads and haven't actually used Vista yourself, but just in case you have, could you give an example of Vista producing a UAC prompt when you're *not* doing system-wide installing, configuring, writing to folders you don't have the permissions to write to, etc. -- i.e. in cases where Ubuntu wouldn't prompt you?
I know it's petty, but my biggest beef with Vista is the 2D graphics rendering. I knew none of the other hundreds of issues wouldn't get fixed. But with all the hype about the Aero Glass thingy, I was at least hoping the new GUI would be rendered without flickering, window-tearing and slow, stuttery drags and moves. And? No joy. Same problems that 3.11 had. Truly pathetic. Presumably, you haven't got a good enough graphics card and Vista's switch back to the old 2D rendering. If you meet the system requirements for the Desktop Window Manager, which is what the new desktop compositor is called, then you'll find that they actually have done exactly what you're criticising them for not doing; complete with full-screen Direct3D composited surface, double-buffering to prevent window tearing, etc.
Correct because very few Unix/Linux/Mac OS/X programs require you to run as root. What normal programs require you to elevate to admin on Vista? I haven't yet come across one. (99% of potential problems from XP programs assuming they're running as admin are due to writes to Hkey_Local_Machine and \Program Files during normal operation, both of which are solved by file & registry virtualisation to the user's home folder).
Most programs require you to install them as admin, true, but that's so they can be installed for all users; and that's the same as with Mac OS and Linux (Synaptic and apt-get both need privilege elevation, to use Ubuntu as an example).
I take it you don't know how sudo works, do you? You have to type a password in there! I take it you don't know how UAC works, do you? Actually, I have no need to assume; since it is quite clear from your comment. You do need to type in an admin password at a UAC prompt when you're running as a standard user; just as with Linux/sudo (except an admin password rather than the current user's password). Since I assume you've never seen a UAC prompt, here's an example of one -- see the 'password' box in the middle there?
When you're running as an admin, true, you don't need to type in an admin password; since you're already logged in as an admin, so you must have typed one it at the login prompt in the first place! Again, this is the same as Linux -- you don't need to type in your password when you're logged in as root. The only difference between Vista and Linux in this sense, is that, by default, Vista prompts for user confirmation for admin tasks when you're logged in as admin; obviously not asking for a password since you're logged in as admin, but notifying you that you're performing an administrator task. Note that in this situation -- when you're logged in as root -- Linux would not (by default) prompt at all, and would certainly not request a password.
MSN messenger has been bundled with windows for a while now and gives microsoft an unfair advantage on the IM market (nearly everyone buying a computer, gets windows and so windows messenger (which is a stripped down version of MSN messenger)).... In other words: they're trying to use their dominant market position, which was gained by illegal means, to force companies to strengthen Microsoft's position in the market even further. I wonder what the EU will think of this kind behavior from Microsoft. Nice rant, pity it doesn't have a foundation. MSN messenger (/WIndows Live messenger) hasn't been bundled with Windows for over a year now; probably precisely because of worries about EU intervention.
On a somewhat related note, have Vista users noticed the new 'Live' programs available optionally through Windows Update? No...? I've just had a thorough look around the Vista Windows Update window, and there's nothing in there at all about Live programs. I've only ever had updates for Windows. What exactly are you referring to?
(There is a link which says "Get updates for more products" which takes you to a page where you can download Microsoft update (as opposed to Windows updated) which presumably would give you updates to Live products, but you have to actively choose to install that).
I think the difference is that physical laws can be tested, measured, and verified repeatedly in almost any university lab. You can demonstrate gravity pretty easily by dropping various objects from the top of a ladder and measuring positions. You can design all kinds of controlled experiments to test gravity. Evolution is much more difficult to place into a controlled experiment, especially with the mechanism being random mutation, so it probably won't become more than a theory any time soon. Rubbish. They're both equally testable. One takes a few seconds, and the other anything from several days to severl million years depending on species; but timescale can't change a theory into a law. For the actual difference, see http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl.
At the time. I think by now, "theory" is a misnomer when it comes to evolution. Scientifically speaking, it's on the same par as the "laws" of gravitation, planetary motion, and thermodynamics No. A theory is a different concept to a law; one cannot change into the other. A law is a single generalized statement, usually mathematical. A theory is a body of related laws, explanations, hypotheses, and supporting evidence. So you have both the Theory of Gravity, started by Newton, reinvented by Einstein, ad which is still being improved; and the Law of Gravity, F=GMm/r^2. One does not change into the other. Evolution as a theory will never be "established as a law", because it is not expressible as a single law.
"Rejects evolution" has lots of possible senses ...
c) Rejects the premise that evolution leads by logical inference to an atheistic position I don't think anyone has ever seriously asserted that accepting evolution necessarily implies atheism. Even Dawkins, outspoken atheistic evolutionary biologist that he is, doesn't try to assert that (he only uses evolution as evidence that it is not *necessary* to invoke a deity in order to explain the universe_.
Boy, and I thought they only failed to teach history over here in the US.
...
Hell, just saying "how Europe thought before that whole Darwin guy showed up" should be enough. Given that you seem to believe that prior to Darwin's theory of natural selection, all European scientists were young-Earth creationists who believed that species were eternally unchanging; I'm not sure that you should be criticising others for lacking knowlege of history...!
Suffice to say that that was most definitely not the case. Google 'Lamarckism', for example, and 'orthogenesis'.
They've always offered support. It's mainly for businesses who have volume license agreements etc. with MS, but consumers get 90 days of free tech support with retail versions of Windows & office (after three months you pay per incident). This is fairly standard with software companies -- Apple has exactly the same (90 days free, then you pay).
Microsoft nowadays seems to be breaking all UI standards just for the sake of the change. For instance, you can see several rants on... Office's infamous ribbon. If the biggest rant you could find on Office's "infamous" ribbon is an article praising MS for making its minimize feature slightly more discoverable, I'd say that's a fairly resounding vindication of it...
Hopefully the user is notified about the proposed merge? else it's housekeeping time for me when i get back to work. You get a "Confirm Folder Replace" dialogue.
BTW, is pressing "ctrl-z" ( / edit -> undo) really that much housekeeping work?
A 5 kilo block of iron has more (thermal) energy than a 1 kilo block at the same temperature. Therefore, they must be at different temperatures? Likewise a denser gas would have a higher temperature than a less dense one Nitpicker. Temperature is the average energy per particle (per degree of freedom), not the total energy of the entire system; as you could have worked out yourself.
Since particles shouldn't be able to move faster than light, and temperature is simply a measure of the vibration of particles, wouldn't the maximum possible temperature be the temperature at which the molecules are moving at the speed of light? No. Read some of the replies above you. Temperature is related to energy, not speed. If you get a particle near the speed of light, when you double its energy it doesn't increase its speed much; but you've still doubled its energy. So a particle's energy is unlimited (or maybe it isn't, that's what TFA was discussing). The energy of a particle moving "at the speed of light" would in fact be undefined (if you try to work it out you'll get a divide by zero error).
I thought that temperature was directly proportional to the speed that the electron travels around the atom. No.
Electrons can certainly contribute to an atom's energy: an electron can be at a number of different 'energy levels'. Note, however, that these energy levels are discrete: an electron can be in the lowest energy level, or the next highest; but not in between. And lots of other factors contribute to temperature as well: for example, in a liquid, each atom is moving around, which means it has kinetic energy which contributes to the liquid's internal energy; and there are forces between the atoms, which means there is potential energy which has to be taken into account.
The "speed" of an electron orbiting an atom is a fairly meaningless concept in modern models of an atom. If you assume the Bohr model of an atom (Google it), you can work out the angular momentum of an atom due to its electron and divide by the electron's mass and orbital radius to get a number, but it wouldn't be very useful.
Since no matter can travel faster than the speed of light then there may be maximum temperature. Not at all. Temperature is related to internal energy, not speed; and energy is unlimited (or maybe it isn't, that's what TFA was discussing). If you get a particle near the speed of light, when you double its energy it doesn't increase its speed much; but you've still doubled its energy.
Then again I may be wrong again but doesn't the small nuclear force hold the electron in orbit around the atom. Not strong nuclear, electrostatic.
Could the electron travel so fast that it reaches an escape velocity? Oh, certainly. Give an electron a lot of energy (more than the electrostatic potential energy between it and the nucleus) and it'll escape the atom. Note that you have it give it all at once, or it'll be released again in the form of a photon. Indeed, it was Einstein who noticed that when you shine a light at a metal, electrons wouldn't be emitted unless the wavelength of the light was below a certain threshold value: i.e. the energy of each photon was high enough to liberate an electron from an atom in the metal in one go. Google 'photoelectric effect'.
Is: C:\Nothing to see here. Move along.\ a legal folder name? No. In Windows, file and folder names can't end in a trailing space or period. So it'd have to be "C:\Nothing to see here. Move along\".
The problem is worse for me on TFTs, on CRTs I can get away with it for some time. But CRTs are hard to find these days. Subpixel rendering is automatically switched off on CRTs. "Cleartype" on a CRT is just greyscale antialiasing.
If Vista has taught us anything, it's that Microsoft is laser-focused on superficial and eye-candy improvements, while caring very little about improving (or even fixing) the underlying technologies. OK, this is getting more than slightly ridiculous.
Of the posts about Vista on Slashdot, approximately half are to the the effect that "Vista is bad because all it is is superficial and eye-candy improvements to XP, with very little improvement to the underlying technologies".
The other half are to the effect that "Vista is bad because they completely rewrote a lot of the underlying technologies from scratch, leading to unprecedented performance and compatibility problems. If they'd just made some UI improvements to XP, it would have been much better".
Obviously, reality is somewhere in between the two; but I suppose that makes for a much less pithy soundbites.
I know this is Slashdot, but can we please have a slightly more informed discussion here? To get you started:
On my DESKTOP, the "shut down" icon put it into sleep mode. If you really want it to shut down, you have to click the > button and select the "shut down" option. *rolleyes at MS designers* Apologies; you're right, sleep mode is the default (I think I just rebound my one to make it shut down 5 minutes after installing it....). But again, if you use shut down more often than sleep, rebind the button to press 'shut down' (in 'power options'). I imagine the logic for making it 'sleep' by default was that the actual, physical power button on the computer is probably set to shut down by default, and having the start menu one do that as well would be redundent.
Actually, these days, I just use the keyboard: winkey, ->, ->, ->, enter works perfectly well for shutting down.
Who even says that at an RNG has to be at the OS level?... As another poster said, where in the OS is this used? Presumably, at the many places where encryption exists at the OS level. NTFS file encryption (EFS), Bitlocker drive encryption... Hell, even Readyboost shares (i.e. using flash drives as a superfetch cache) are encrypted in case someone steals the flash drive. Good encryption isa pretty important ability for a modern secure operating system.
"lacks the collaborative or document-sharing features of competitors like Google Docs or even Microsoft's Office Live Workspace."
Please, does the microsoft dislike even creep in here? I see no actual reason to have a even there. The 'even' does seem a little strange, especially when, as far as I can tell, Office Live Workspace is a collaboration & document-sharing sytem, full stop. That is its purpose in life. It's not an online office suite that happens to have document-sharing features: it still uses normal MS Office to actully edit the documents (which makes sense, as that's how MS make their money). MSOLW without document sharing and collaboration wouldn't actually do anything...
I dislike Microsoft and think that Vista is essentially a resource-hogging, effectively worthless upgrade Go copy-paste your MS astroturfing somewhere else My, astroturfing certainly has changed a bit since I was a lad! Maybe I'm getting too old for this...
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, because sudo is only used rarely every once in a while (when you do some system-wide installation or configuration) whereas UAC opens up in Windows at the slightest event ("You're going to sneeze. Cancel or Allow ?") Presumably you're quoting off the 'Get a Mac' ads and haven't actually used Vista yourself, but just in case you have, could you give an example of Vista producing a UAC prompt when you're *not* doing system-wide installing, configuring, writing to folders you don't have the permissions to write to, etc. -- i.e. in cases where Ubuntu wouldn't prompt you?
Most programs require you to install them as admin, true, but that's so they can be installed for all users; and that's the same as with Mac OS and Linux (Synaptic and apt-get both need privilege elevation, to use Ubuntu as an example).
When you're running as an admin, true, you don't need to type in an admin password; since you're already logged in as an admin, so you must have typed one it at the login prompt in the first place! Again, this is the same as Linux -- you don't need to type in your password when you're logged in as root. The only difference between Vista and Linux in this sense, is that, by default, Vista prompts for user confirmation for admin tasks when you're logged in as admin; obviously not asking for a password since you're logged in as admin, but notifying you that you're performing an administrator task. Note that in this situation -- when you're logged in as root -- Linux would not (by default) prompt at all, and would certainly not request a password.
(There is a link which says "Get updates for more products" which takes you to a page where you can download Microsoft update (as opposed to Windows updated) which presumably would give you updates to Live products, but you have to actively choose to install that).
...
c) Rejects the premise that evolution leads by logical inference to an atheistic position I don't think anyone has ever seriously asserted that accepting evolution necessarily implies atheism. Even Dawkins, outspoken atheistic evolutionary biologist that he is, doesn't try to assert that (he only uses evolution as evidence that it is not *necessary* to invoke a deity in order to explain the universe_.
...
Hell, just saying "how Europe thought before that whole Darwin guy showed up" should be enough. Given that you seem to believe that prior to Darwin's theory of natural selection, all European scientists were young-Earth creationists who believed that species were eternally unchanging; I'm not sure that you should be criticising others for lacking knowlege of history...!
Suffice to say that that was most definitely not the case. Google 'Lamarckism', for example, and 'orthogenesis'.
They've always offered support. It's mainly for businesses who have volume license agreements etc. with MS, but consumers get 90 days of free tech support with retail versions of Windows & office (after three months you pay per incident). This is fairly standard with software companies -- Apple has exactly the same (90 days free, then you pay).
BTW, is pressing "ctrl-z" ( / edit -> undo) really that much housekeeping work?
Ctrl-Shift-Esc, Alt f n, "powershell.exe" (or "cmd.exe" for old-timers).
Bah. Explorer. Who needs it?
Electrons can certainly contribute to an atom's energy: an electron can be at a number of different 'energy levels'. Note, however, that these energy levels are discrete: an electron can be in the lowest energy level, or the next highest; but not in between. And lots of other factors contribute to temperature as well: for example, in a liquid, each atom is moving around, which means it has kinetic energy which contributes to the liquid's internal energy; and there are forces between the atoms, which means there is potential energy which has to be taken into account.
The "speed" of an electron orbiting an atom is a fairly meaningless concept in modern models of an atom. If you assume the Bohr model of an atom (Google it), you can work out the angular momentum of an atom due to its electron and divide by the electron's mass and orbital radius to get a number, but it wouldn't be very useful. Since no matter can travel faster than the speed of light then there may be maximum temperature. Not at all. Temperature is related to internal energy, not speed; and energy is unlimited (or maybe it isn't, that's what TFA was discussing). If you get a particle near the speed of light, when you double its energy it doesn't increase its speed much; but you've still doubled its energy. Then again I may be wrong again but doesn't the small nuclear force hold the electron in orbit around the atom. Not strong nuclear, electrostatic. Could the electron travel so fast that it reaches an escape velocity? Oh, certainly. Give an electron a lot of energy (more than the electrostatic potential energy between it and the nucleus) and it'll escape the atom. Note that you have it give it all at once, or it'll be released again in the form of a photon. Indeed, it was Einstein who noticed that when you shine a light at a metal, electrons wouldn't be emitted unless the wavelength of the light was below a certain threshold value: i.e. the energy of each photon was high enough to liberate an electron from an atom in the metal in one go. Google 'photoelectric effect'.
Of the posts about Vista on Slashdot, approximately half are to the the effect that "Vista is bad because all it is is superficial and eye-candy improvements to XP, with very little improvement to the underlying technologies".
The other half are to the effect that "Vista is bad because they completely rewrote a lot of the underlying technologies from scratch, leading to unprecedented performance and compatibility problems. If they'd just made some UI improvements to XP, it would have been much better".
Obviously, reality is somewhere in between the two; but I suppose that makes for a much less pithy soundbites.
I know this is Slashdot, but can we please have a slightly more informed discussion here? To get you started:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_Windows_Vista
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_features_new_to_Windows_Vista
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_and_safety_features_new_to_Windows_Vista
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Management_features_new_to_Windows_Vista
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Vista_I/O_technologies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Vista_networking_technologies
And, of course,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Windows_Vista
Actually, these days, I just use the keyboard: winkey, ->, ->, ->, enter works perfectly well for shutting down.
I really don't think the parent was going for "Informative"....
Please, does the microsoft dislike even creep in here? I see no actual reason to have a even there. The 'even' does seem a little strange, especially when, as far as I can tell, Office Live Workspace is a collaboration & document-sharing sytem, full stop. That is its purpose in life. It's not an online office suite that happens to have document-sharing features: it still uses normal MS Office to actully edit the documents (which makes sense, as that's how MS make their money). MSOLW without document sharing and collaboration wouldn't actually do anything...