Sure. Anybody that pretends a '60s British roadster can hold a candle in maneuverability, acceleration, or top speed against a modern-day fuel injected Honda Accord (!) is deluding themselves.
No, seriously. Heck, if you really want to blow your mind, consider the fact that a Honda Odyssey - yes, a minivan! - handles objectively "sportier" (i.e. has more grip, more acceleration, more top speed, etc.) than roadsters from the era of vinyl. Of course, it's not as much "fun" to drive a dependable minivan as it is to drive a two-seater with tiny tires and an engine that overheats after ten minutes, but, then again, it's not as much "fun" to listen to digitally reproduced music compared to the nostalgic experience of picking up a piece of vinyl and gently placing it on a record player.
It's true! I was sitting there, minding my own business (or so I thought) and listening to some Shostakovich with some earphones while eating some fruit when, lo and behold, a dimensional rift open right up in my living room and a large two-headed octopus summoned itself right in front of me! Then, the octopus introduced itself as "Bill and Steve". One head, so it said, specialized in hellish gates, which were used to keep souls in, while the other specialized in Satanic jobs, which were used to secure the souls. I was scared out of my wits! Not only did I nearly choke on my apple, I was ready to jump out of one of my seven windows! Absolutely terrifying!
Fortunately, I knew a priest, so I asked him what I should do. He told me to say a Hail Mary every six months, dispose of the earphones, wipe the hard drive to my laptop, install Slackware, then, just to be certain that I cast out the demon, install Qemu and set up a pair of virtual machines, one running Gentoo and the other running Debian Stable. What I didn't realize until it was far too late, though, was that the priest was a prick. Granted, his suggested penance did indeed cast out the two-headed cephalopod from my apartment. However, I now have a serious infestation of daemons!
Slashdot, I pray to you! Tell me what I must do to cast out this new scourge!
Yep - did the same thing at a company I worked for. Similar situation - their former "IT Manager" bought a copy of Office from Best Buy and installed it on all of the computers in the office, then called in to activate whenever it would fail the key check (which was frequently), along with a host of other software. I led with a carrot and a stick - we didn't have to become legit with everything all at once, but if steps weren't taking to become legit, there was "a greater than zero chance" that the BSA would sooner or later come knocking (never mind how they would know to look...). So, since a hardware refresh was coming up, they just bought an initial pack of Office Open Licensing to get started, then purchased an additional one whenever they replaced a PC. After a couple of years, one license at a time, they became compliant and all is good. Best of all, it spread the cost of compliance out so that, instead of shelling out tens of thousand of dollars in Office licensing all at once, they could spread it out over time. As an added bonus, if anybody did ask, they could honestly say they were taking steps to bring themselves into compliance.
That said, in my case, I had an advantage - the owner of the company didn't realize what the IT Manager was doing and wasn't terribly happy about it when she found out. In the original questioner's case, however, that might not be the case. If you can't find someone higher than you and/or your manager that's willing to support your efforts to bring the company into compliance, either through replacing existing software with legitimately free alternatives or through purchasing licensing (or some combination of the two), follow what everyone else is saying here: Document like mad, update your CV, and call the BSA.
In all seriousness, Ubuntu's worked pretty well on my laptop, too. Wireless was a little finicky (Broadcom - ugh!), but nothing ndiswrapper couldn't fix. I will also go on record and say that I absolutely LOVE EnvyNG, which has done a fine job of addressing driver-related issues that I originally had back in the day.
One other thing I first noticed about Ubuntu and Linux in general: When you plug in a USB keyboard or mouse, it doesn't take a minute for the OS to recognize it like it does in Windows. Ah... bliss.
These days, the point isn't to really "cure" spam - it's to minimize it as much as possible. I have a Bayesian filter in front of my e-mail server and it filters out roughly 95% of the e-mail that comes our way as "spam". Based on what my coworkers are reporting, about 5-10% of the remaining e-mail is still spam. On the other hand, without that filter, that 5-10% suddenly becomes 90+%, at which point e-mail becomes useless.
Sometimes an incomplete solution is far better than no solution at all.
Pass that law and nobody would invest in stock anymore, much less venture capital funding. Why would I buy a share of Google if owning it for even a second made me partially liable for any criminal activity that Google might commit in the past, present or future?
The reason you're seeing cleanup sites like these is because some mines operated and exhausted themselves before there were environmental regulation. Most of the people that were responsible for the toxic waste at these sites are not only long dead due to old age, they didn't know any better when they made the decisions that led to these toxic tailings in the first place. For example, there's a reservoir in Nevada - Lake Lahontan - that's full of mercury-tainted sediment from the Comstock mining era in the mid-19th century. Who's responsible for cleanup? Did anybody know, much less care, about the effects of mercury on the watershed back then? Heck, the reservoir didn't even exist back then - it was created in the early 20th century as part of the Newlands Project when they dammed up the Carson River. So, who do we charge for this? Do we search through the records of the time and let the descendants of the owners of the various mining companies know that, hey, since their long-dead ancestors dumped some mercury in the river over 100 years ago that they're now liable for the cleanup? Do we try to hunt down every single person that bought mining stock in the various companies that existed at the time and tell them to clean it up? I wish you luck on that one - most mining companies of the time existed solely as stock scams and, since mining towns of the era had local stock exchanges (plural!) and most of them were fly-by-night affairs, recordkeeping was spotty at best. Or, do we just single out a few big banks that were around in the era, like Wells Fargo, and tell them that they're responsible since they probably provided some capital for some of the mining operations of the time?
More importantly, if we decide that it's okay and morally right to punish people for mistakes that their ancestors made, where do we stop? One of the most revolutionary concepts of Christianity was that the son was not liable for the mistakes of the father. Over two thousand years ago, that was huge, and it still is. It means that, if somebody killed my great-grandpa, I don't have to kill their great-grandson in retribution even though he personally never did anything wrong to me. It means that the French and the English could eventually stop fighting each other. It also means that my account in a bank that had the audacity to exist 150 years ago shouldn't suffer because somebody's great-great-grandfather tossed something in a river that he shouldn't have and we finally decided it was time to do something about it.
The RAM doesn't help. Assuming that he can get the kernel and X to load up in under, say, 8 MB, that still only leaves 20 MB for the browser and any objects present on the web site. Obviously Flash would nuke it from orbit, as would most Javascript-enabled pages these days. Images would hurt, too. I'm not saying it can't be done, mind you, but there are a ton of corners that would have to be cut to pull it off.
Actually, the reason people were so concerned with H1N1 initially was because highly virulent strains of flu cause higher mortality rates among otherwise healthy people since their immune systems overreact to the virus (cytokine storms are fun!). That's what made the so-called "Spanish Influenza" epidemic in 1918 so deadly. If H1N1 triggered something similar, it would be extremely dangerous.
The broadcom drivers link against Linux code and thus it needs to be free. If they don't want to do that, they can NOT USE LINUX, it's their choice.
Wait a sec... binary blob drivers are used against Linux all the time. Heck, my Ubuntu-running laptop uses Nvidia's binary drivers for 3D support. Are you saying that Nvidia is violating the GPL by providing these?
Actually, Plan 9 was useful and implemented somewhere - if memory serves, Los Alamos set up a grid running Plan 9 back in the day. HURD, on the other hand, barely even exists as a cohesive system inside the architects' heads. Last I checked, they're still trying to find a microkernel to throw the thing on.
Generally speaking, capitalism has done a better (albeit imperfect) job of providing a system where a few can get rich at the expense of the rest AND improving the social good of everyone. You have to keep in mind here, the choice isn't between capitalism and perfectly-implemented communism, where everybody gives according to their abilities and only takes according to their needs. Humans don't work that way, no matter how much indoctrination, teaching, or propaganda you throw at them - the people in charge always start treating everyone else like slaves, and the people at the bottom eventually start acting like slaves (i.e. doing the least necessary to avoid punishment). Besides, at least in my experience, the group of people that wants to help all people is rather small - usually, you're better off counting on everybody to act in their own self-interest, even if they're government employees.
I found some goat at a Sak 'N Save in the shady part of town back in the day - since it was dirt cheap ($1/pound or thereabouts), I used it as a steady source of meat during college. The kicker is that it was also labeled in Spanish, so I think you have to go to ethnic stores to find it. That said, I'd say your assessment is spot on - it's definitely not something you're going to make a steak out of.
The entire point of Roundup-ready crops is that it takes less Roundup to kill pests than natural alternatives. So, food grown from Roundup-ready crops would actually have less pesticides on them than non-GM non-organic food. I can't argue with you about Monsato's business policies, though - not a big fan of them.
What always annoyed me was the half configuration allowed by the gui. But it you tweak the config files manually you break the gui stuff.
Hmm... reminds me of YaST or older versions of NetworkManager in Ubuntu. That's one of the drags of grafting GUIs on top of text-driven configs - if your GUI doesn't properly handle every single flag in every conceivable order using every conceivable syntax, weird, wonky things start happening. As much fun as it is to malign to registry and MS' other database-driven config systems, you have to admit - you can definitely tell their products were explicitly designed with the GUI in mind, instead of throwing the GUI on in the last minute as a bone to all of those that don't want to administer their boxen the "old-fashioned" way.
Slashdot Mirror
No. It's madness. This is Sparta.
Sure. Anybody that pretends a '60s British roadster can hold a candle in maneuverability, acceleration, or top speed against a modern-day fuel injected Honda Accord (!) is deluding themselves.
No, seriously. Heck, if you really want to blow your mind, consider the fact that a Honda Odyssey - yes, a minivan! - handles objectively "sportier" (i.e. has more grip, more acceleration, more top speed, etc.) than roadsters from the era of vinyl. Of course, it's not as much "fun" to drive a dependable minivan as it is to drive a two-seater with tiny tires and an engine that overheats after ten minutes, but, then again, it's not as much "fun" to listen to digitally reproduced music compared to the nostalgic experience of picking up a piece of vinyl and gently placing it on a record player.
Does that help?
It's true! I was sitting there, minding my own business (or so I thought) and listening to some Shostakovich with some earphones while eating some fruit when, lo and behold, a dimensional rift open right up in my living room and a large two-headed octopus summoned itself right in front of me! Then, the octopus introduced itself as "Bill and Steve". One head, so it said, specialized in hellish gates, which were used to keep souls in, while the other specialized in Satanic jobs, which were used to secure the souls. I was scared out of my wits! Not only did I nearly choke on my apple, I was ready to jump out of one of my seven windows! Absolutely terrifying!
Fortunately, I knew a priest, so I asked him what I should do. He told me to say a Hail Mary every six months, dispose of the earphones, wipe the hard drive to my laptop, install Slackware, then, just to be certain that I cast out the demon, install Qemu and set up a pair of virtual machines, one running Gentoo and the other running Debian Stable. What I didn't realize until it was far too late, though, was that the priest was a prick. Granted, his suggested penance did indeed cast out the two-headed cephalopod from my apartment. However, I now have a serious infestation of daemons!
Slashdot, I pray to you! Tell me what I must do to cast out this new scourge!
Yep - did the same thing at a company I worked for. Similar situation - their former "IT Manager" bought a copy of Office from Best Buy and installed it on all of the computers in the office, then called in to activate whenever it would fail the key check (which was frequently), along with a host of other software. I led with a carrot and a stick - we didn't have to become legit with everything all at once, but if steps weren't taking to become legit, there was "a greater than zero chance" that the BSA would sooner or later come knocking (never mind how they would know to look...). So, since a hardware refresh was coming up, they just bought an initial pack of Office Open Licensing to get started, then purchased an additional one whenever they replaced a PC. After a couple of years, one license at a time, they became compliant and all is good. Best of all, it spread the cost of compliance out so that, instead of shelling out tens of thousand of dollars in Office licensing all at once, they could spread it out over time. As an added bonus, if anybody did ask, they could honestly say they were taking steps to bring themselves into compliance.
That said, in my case, I had an advantage - the owner of the company didn't realize what the IT Manager was doing and wasn't terribly happy about it when she found out. In the original questioner's case, however, that might not be the case. If you can't find someone higher than you and/or your manager that's willing to support your efforts to bring the company into compliance, either through replacing existing software with legitimately free alternatives or through purchasing licensing (or some combination of the two), follow what everyone else is saying here: Document like mad, update your CV, and call the BSA.
In all seriousness, Ubuntu's worked pretty well on my laptop, too. Wireless was a little finicky (Broadcom - ugh!), but nothing ndiswrapper couldn't fix. I will also go on record and say that I absolutely LOVE EnvyNG, which has done a fine job of addressing driver-related issues that I originally had back in the day.
One other thing I first noticed about Ubuntu and Linux in general: When you plug in a USB keyboard or mouse, it doesn't take a minute for the OS to recognize it like it does in Windows. Ah... bliss.
I heard it keeps most of your data, but some of it spontaneously explodes from time to time.
Sure it is. It's just not ready for the laptop.
No. That's a myth conception. The site is still there. It just won't respond due to our linking myth adventures.
These days, the point isn't to really "cure" spam - it's to minimize it as much as possible. I have a Bayesian filter in front of my e-mail server and it filters out roughly 95% of the e-mail that comes our way as "spam". Based on what my coworkers are reporting, about 5-10% of the remaining e-mail is still spam. On the other hand, without that filter, that 5-10% suddenly becomes 90+%, at which point e-mail becomes useless.
Sometimes an incomplete solution is far better than no solution at all.
Pass that law and nobody would invest in stock anymore, much less venture capital funding. Why would I buy a share of Google if owning it for even a second made me partially liable for any criminal activity that Google might commit in the past, present or future?
The reason you're seeing cleanup sites like these is because some mines operated and exhausted themselves before there were environmental regulation. Most of the people that were responsible for the toxic waste at these sites are not only long dead due to old age, they didn't know any better when they made the decisions that led to these toxic tailings in the first place. For example, there's a reservoir in Nevada - Lake Lahontan - that's full of mercury-tainted sediment from the Comstock mining era in the mid-19th century. Who's responsible for cleanup? Did anybody know, much less care, about the effects of mercury on the watershed back then? Heck, the reservoir didn't even exist back then - it was created in the early 20th century as part of the Newlands Project when they dammed up the Carson River. So, who do we charge for this? Do we search through the records of the time and let the descendants of the owners of the various mining companies know that, hey, since their long-dead ancestors dumped some mercury in the river over 100 years ago that they're now liable for the cleanup? Do we try to hunt down every single person that bought mining stock in the various companies that existed at the time and tell them to clean it up? I wish you luck on that one - most mining companies of the time existed solely as stock scams and, since mining towns of the era had local stock exchanges (plural!) and most of them were fly-by-night affairs, recordkeeping was spotty at best. Or, do we just single out a few big banks that were around in the era, like Wells Fargo, and tell them that they're responsible since they probably provided some capital for some of the mining operations of the time?
More importantly, if we decide that it's okay and morally right to punish people for mistakes that their ancestors made, where do we stop? One of the most revolutionary concepts of Christianity was that the son was not liable for the mistakes of the father. Over two thousand years ago, that was huge, and it still is. It means that, if somebody killed my great-grandpa, I don't have to kill their great-grandson in retribution even though he personally never did anything wrong to me. It means that the French and the English could eventually stop fighting each other. It also means that my account in a bank that had the audacity to exist 150 years ago shouldn't suffer because somebody's great-great-grandfather tossed something in a river that he shouldn't have and we finally decided it was time to do something about it.
True, but NT 3.51 was.
Pfft. Why do that when he can run something more secure and network-aware, like NT 3.51 or OS/2 Warp? *whistles in the dark*
The RAM doesn't help. Assuming that he can get the kernel and X to load up in under, say, 8 MB, that still only leaves 20 MB for the browser and any objects present on the web site. Obviously Flash would nuke it from orbit, as would most Javascript-enabled pages these days. Images would hurt, too. I'm not saying it can't be done, mind you, but there are a ton of corners that would have to be cut to pull it off.
Actually, the reason people were so concerned with H1N1 initially was because highly virulent strains of flu cause higher mortality rates among otherwise healthy people since their immune systems overreact to the virus (cytokine storms are fun!). That's what made the so-called "Spanish Influenza" epidemic in 1918 so deadly. If H1N1 triggered something similar, it would be extremely dangerous.
Fortunately, it doesn't.
Oh God... a 20 GB Unicode XML file! The horror! The horror!
I did do the nasty in the pasty!
The broadcom drivers link against Linux code and thus it needs to be free. If they don't want to do that, they can NOT USE LINUX, it's their choice.
Wait a sec... binary blob drivers are used against Linux all the time. Heck, my Ubuntu-running laptop uses Nvidia's binary drivers for 3D support. Are you saying that Nvidia is violating the GPL by providing these?
Actually, Plan 9 was useful and implemented somewhere - if memory serves, Los Alamos set up a grid running Plan 9 back in the day. HURD, on the other hand, barely even exists as a cohesive system inside the architects' heads. Last I checked, they're still trying to find a microkernel to throw the thing on.
Oh, so Mad TV, then!
Generally speaking, capitalism has done a better (albeit imperfect) job of providing a system where a few can get rich at the expense of the rest AND improving the social good of everyone. You have to keep in mind here, the choice isn't between capitalism and perfectly-implemented communism, where everybody gives according to their abilities and only takes according to their needs. Humans don't work that way, no matter how much indoctrination, teaching, or propaganda you throw at them - the people in charge always start treating everyone else like slaves, and the people at the bottom eventually start acting like slaves (i.e. doing the least necessary to avoid punishment). Besides, at least in my experience, the group of people that wants to help all people is rather small - usually, you're better off counting on everybody to act in their own self-interest, even if they're government employees.
According to the State of Texas, not all things that happen in the bedroom are natural.
I found some goat at a Sak 'N Save in the shady part of town back in the day - since it was dirt cheap ($1/pound or thereabouts), I used it as a steady source of meat during college. The kicker is that it was also labeled in Spanish, so I think you have to go to ethnic stores to find it. That said, I'd say your assessment is spot on - it's definitely not something you're going to make a steak out of.
Well, of course not. Haven't you heard that new hit song by 'Loverboy'? Dooodnnndoodnn - A frog and a sugar beet DNA just won't splice!
The entire point of Roundup-ready crops is that it takes less Roundup to kill pests than natural alternatives. So, food grown from Roundup-ready crops would actually have less pesticides on them than non-GM non-organic food. I can't argue with you about Monsato's business policies, though - not a big fan of them.
What always annoyed me was the half configuration allowed by the gui. But it you tweak the config files manually you break the gui stuff.
Hmm... reminds me of YaST or older versions of NetworkManager in Ubuntu. That's one of the drags of grafting GUIs on top of text-driven configs - if your GUI doesn't properly handle every single flag in every conceivable order using every conceivable syntax, weird, wonky things start happening. As much fun as it is to malign to registry and MS' other database-driven config systems, you have to admit - you can definitely tell their products were explicitly designed with the GUI in mind, instead of throwing the GUI on in the last minute as a bone to all of those that don't want to administer their boxen the "old-fashioned" way.