Re:Excession and Look to Windward?
on
Matter
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· Score: 1
You're quite right, I also feel I have benefitted from some of the fiction I have read. Trouble is, there is so much non-fiction I need to read. And I've always been one of those weird people who can sit and read textbooks as if they are novels anyway. Retirement is not so far off now, and I expect my reading list will change dramatically then.
Perhaps, but as I have no experience with nor any use for the iPhone, iPod, or iTV I was referring to the computers. I don't even use iTunes, as I have the music database in my head. Besides I like using mplayer from the command line much much better. More flexible. I like the idea of the iPhone, but I hate AT&T plus I do not want any device I can't hack as I see fit without fear of bricking it (well, a long time ago I did pretty much brick a G3 but that was my own fault).
As for the "pain of trying to get certain things to play nice" with the Mac, I haven't experienced it. I'm sure it varies, but then I research before I spend. The ADB bus and AppleTalk used to piss me off, but ADB is long gone and now we have BSD underpinnings, AppleTalk is quite ignorable in OS X.
I love their computers but really don't care about their toys. And the very first thing I always do is toss the one button mouse in the closet and plug in a nice scroll mouse. That MightyMouse or whatever they call it looks really nice, but is way too expensive for what it is. Any old USB mouse works fine for me.
Oh, and it should go without saying that there is nothing illegal about repairing/upgrading any Mac with non-Mac parts. Should go without saying, but then on/. the myths can be preposterous at times...;)
Depends on (a) where you live, and (b) whether or not the EULA will actually hold up in any court.
Obviously, you don't want to build Mac clones for enterprise use, but home use? I can't see Apple employing **AA-style tactics over it anytime soon. AFAIK MS is the only OS supplier actually petty enough to harass individual users.
Re:Excession and Look to Windward?
on
Matter
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I would have to agree that Excession isn't a good introduction.
That's encouraging then. Because I have very little time for fiction and so Excession is the only Banks novel I've read so far. I thought it was an absolutely killer story, and one of these days I'm going to make time to read more of him. Banks and Greg Bear are just the most amazing writers IMO. But then as I said, I have so little time to read fiction, so my opinion may not be worth much.:)
Not just lately, who could forget the September 1998 issue of Wired, wherein they interviewed several "experts" and concluded that due to the Y2K bugs society as we know it would cease to exist? Yes, that was the very last issue I actually read, but sadly their crap still gets reproduced all over the place. Wired is the Inquirer for the semi-computer-literate crowd and has been for about a decade now. The fact that the Inquirer has the largest circulation of any publication in the world is clearly not lost on them.
Riiiight, all us Mac users are forced to buy all our parts and peripherals from Apple because nothing else works with a Mac. I used witchcraft to make my Epson printer, Sony monitor, Seagate HDD, Kingston memory, etc all work. Or maybe you meant software? Yes, with only bash, gcc, GNU, MacPorts, fink, OO.org, etc, etc, etc, I can see how you'd pity us.
EULA aside, anyone can build a mac clone that will run OS X. All it takes is to buy compatible components, which are only slightly less ubiquitous than win-compatible stuff, and a functional Apple logic board (or, if you're really resourceful, just the ROMs from it). Mac lovers of modest means have been doing it from the beginning, same as PC users. Sure is amazing how so many people who've never owned a Mac know all the drawbacks.
I would have said "convenience" but you're right, it's laziness. At home I just want it to be easy.
Maybe one day I'll get burned doing that, but after all these years I guess i feel pretty safe.
I see some people going on about Mac vulnerabilities (AV vendors and non Mac users), but it's a long way from vulnerability to active exploit. AFAIK, we haven't had one of those in OS X ever. There were darn few of them in the old MacOS too, and that was almost laughably easy to hack. Of course that was just security through obscurity, but with OS X we definitely have security by design. Even running as admin, one is not strictly speaking root. In fact, OS X has the root account disabled by default. It's a bit like the way Ubuntu does it, using gksudo for privilege escalation.
I am the IT dept at work (only 33 machines), but we are strictly a Mac and Linux shop. Hence, no A/V is required. But, just to be extra safe, I do not allow anyone (including me) to run the work Macs as admin. I do it at home but wouldn't bet my cushy little job on it!
Yes, one should not run as admin. But the Mac OS is the only one I always do run as admin, since 1987 in fact, and never once have I had any malware or been hacked. That's twenty-one years without a breach in security!
This whole A/V on Macs idea comes straight from marketing,not from reason.
Leave out the word "not", and you have a more accurate statement. The only time one should run AV on a Mac is when the Mac is serving files to windows machines, and even then it's just a kludge to accommodate the never-fixed flaws of windows.
Anyone who's been following the misadventures of MS knows the pattern -- they fight to make their software a defacto standard, then break compatibility with everything non-MS as soon as they get there. It behooves the FOSS community to just say no to MS's crap.
I have yet to see gnash work, and I've got it installed in Debian, FBSD, and Vector Linux. I keep seeing references to it working, but not here... It's a darn shame. And silverlight/moonlight appears to be the solution to a nonexistent problem.
You are splitting hairs, either deliberately or because you're brainwashed. KB937287 is necessary for SP1, therefore SP1 was pulled.
How many years did it take those morons to build Vista, and how much longer for SP1? There are so many of you people in denial, but to everyone else it is as plain as the nose on your face that Vista is the biggest turkey out of Redmond since WindowsME. In one or two years I bet they won't even be selling it anymore.
In fact, all this reminds me a great deal of the WinME debacle, right down to all the fools frothing at the mouth, splitting hairs, and telling lies to defend it. Most likely some of you get paid for it.
I understand that many users only need email and a web browser, and that those users will be easily pleased with a toy-like semi-functional OS. Those are the people MS banks on. But those people are not qualified really to comment on the comparative worth of various OSs, are they?:)
Real geeks don't need to make excuses to justify their choices, they know they've chosen well. OTOH it's hard not to notice how defensive many of you MS users are. That says a great deal.
I deal with large files (well to me, as large as 20GB at a time), and Vista generally handles them better than Xp or any OS X
That is an outright lie. You MicroTrolls just kill me. Why do you bother? I mean, do you even know that slashdot is owned by the Open Source Technology Group? Moron.
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You're quite right, I also feel I have benefitted from some of the fiction I have read. Trouble is, there is so much non-fiction I need to read. And I've always been one of those weird people who can sit and read textbooks as if they are novels anyway. Retirement is not so far off now, and I expect my reading list will change dramatically then.
Perhaps, but as I have no experience with nor any use for the iPhone, iPod, or iTV I was referring to the computers. I don't even use iTunes, as I have the music database in my head. Besides I like using mplayer from the command line much much better. More flexible. I like the idea of the iPhone, but I hate AT&T plus I do not want any device I can't hack as I see fit without fear of bricking it (well, a long time ago I did pretty much brick a G3 but that was my own fault).
As for the "pain of trying to get certain things to play nice" with the Mac, I haven't experienced it. I'm sure it varies, but then I research before I spend. The ADB bus and AppleTalk used to piss me off, but ADB is long gone and now we have BSD underpinnings, AppleTalk is quite ignorable in OS X.
I love their computers but really don't care about their toys. And the very first thing I always do is toss the one button mouse in the closet and plug in a nice scroll mouse. That MightyMouse or whatever they call it looks really nice, but is way too expensive for what it is. Any old USB mouse works fine for me.
Oh, and it should go without saying that there is nothing illegal about repairing/upgrading any Mac with non-Mac parts. Should go without saying, but then on /. the myths can be preposterous at times... ;)
Depends on (a) where you live, and (b) whether or not the EULA will actually hold up in any court. Obviously, you don't want to build Mac clones for enterprise use, but home use? I can't see Apple employing **AA-style tactics over it anytime soon. AFAIK MS is the only OS supplier actually petty enough to harass individual users.
AAACK my neuroses!!
That's encouraging then. Because I have very little time for fiction and so Excession is the only Banks novel I've read so far. I thought it was an absolutely killer story, and one of these days I'm going to make time to read more of him. Banks and Greg Bear are just the most amazing writers IMO. But then as I said, I have so little time to read fiction, so my opinion may not be worth much.
Not just lately, who could forget the September 1998 issue of Wired, wherein they interviewed several "experts" and concluded that due to the Y2K bugs society as we know it would cease to exist? Yes, that was the very last issue I actually read, but sadly their crap still gets reproduced all over the place. Wired is the Inquirer for the semi-computer-literate crowd and has been for about a decade now. The fact that the Inquirer has the largest circulation of any publication in the world is clearly not lost on them.
Riiiight, all us Mac users are forced to buy all our parts and peripherals from Apple because nothing else works with a Mac. I used witchcraft to make my Epson printer, Sony monitor, Seagate HDD, Kingston memory, etc all work. Or maybe you meant software? Yes, with only bash, gcc, GNU, MacPorts, fink, OO.org, etc, etc, etc, I can see how you'd pity us.
EULA aside, anyone can build a mac clone that will run OS X. All it takes is to buy compatible components, which are only slightly less ubiquitous than win-compatible stuff, and a functional Apple logic board (or, if you're really resourceful, just the ROMs from it). Mac lovers of modest means have been doing it from the beginning, same as PC users. Sure is amazing how so many people who've never owned a Mac know all the drawbacks.
Someone sure has drunk some kool-aid...
We must introduce them.
I would have said "convenience" but you're right, it's laziness. At home I just want it to be easy. Maybe one day I'll get burned doing that, but after all these years I guess i feel pretty safe. I see some people going on about Mac vulnerabilities (AV vendors and non Mac users), but it's a long way from vulnerability to active exploit. AFAIK, we haven't had one of those in OS X ever. There were darn few of them in the old MacOS too, and that was almost laughably easy to hack. Of course that was just security through obscurity, but with OS X we definitely have security by design. Even running as admin, one is not strictly speaking root. In fact, OS X has the root account disabled by default. It's a bit like the way Ubuntu does it, using gksudo for privilege escalation.
You sure are defensive.
I suppose all these people are full of crap too?
My sainted grandmother swears by garlic and a crucifix, you insensitive clod!
It is a fact which has proven to my satisfaction. Oh sure, the NSA might have us all trojaned, but I have strong faith in their incompetence. :)
I am the IT dept at work (only 33 machines), but we are strictly a Mac and Linux shop. Hence, no A/V is required. But, just to be extra safe, I do not allow anyone (including me) to run the work Macs as admin. I do it at home but wouldn't bet my cushy little job on it!
Yes, one should not run as admin. But the Mac OS is the only one I always do run as admin, since 1987 in fact, and never once have I had any malware or been hacked. That's twenty-one years without a breach in security!
This whole A/V on Macs idea comes straight from marketing,not from reason.
Leave out the word "not", and you have a more accurate statement. The only time one should run AV on a Mac is when the Mac is serving files to windows machines, and even then it's just a kludge to accommodate the never-fixed flaws of windows.
Anyone who's been following the misadventures of MS knows the pattern -- they fight to make their software a defacto standard, then break compatibility with everything non-MS as soon as they get there. It behooves the FOSS community to just say no to MS's crap.
I have yet to see gnash work, and I've got it installed in Debian, FBSD, and Vector Linux. I keep seeing references to it working, but not here... It's a darn shame. And silverlight/moonlight appears to be the solution to a nonexistent problem.
What about H264?
You are splitting hairs, either deliberately or because you're brainwashed. KB937287 is necessary for SP1, therefore SP1 was pulled.
How many years did it take those morons to build Vista, and how much longer for SP1? There are so many of you people in denial, but to everyone else it is as plain as the nose on your face that Vista is the biggest turkey out of Redmond since WindowsME. In one or two years I bet they won't even be selling it anymore.
In fact, all this reminds me a great deal of the WinME debacle, right down to all the fools frothing at the mouth, splitting hairs, and telling lies to defend it. Most likely some of you get paid for it.
I understand that many users only need email and a web browser, and that those users will be easily pleased with a toy-like semi-functional OS. Those are the people MS banks on. But those people are not qualified really to comment on the comparative worth of various OSs, are they? :)
Real geeks don't need to make excuses to justify their choices, they know they've chosen well. OTOH it's hard not to notice how defensive many of you MS users are. That says a great deal.
Then how do you explain this? http://www.news.com/Microsoft-pulls-Vista-SP1-update/2100-1016_3-6231299.html?tag=ne.fd.mnbc
Your "answer" makes no sense to me. The question remains unanswered.
Explain this then, liar: http://www.news.com/Microsoft-pulls-Vista-SP1-update/2100-1016_3-6231299.html?tag=ne.fd.mnbc
That is an outright lie. You MicroTrolls just kill me. Why do you bother? I mean, do you even know that slashdot is owned by the Open Source Technology Group ? Moron.
You aimed your reply at me but it doesn't appear to have much to do with what I said.