If you are a windows who^H^H^Huser then this is unlikely to be great news:
1. You've stuck with XP, and windows 7 is just an incremental upgrade of that - you end up paying hundreds for what amounts to a service pack and a polish of the UI
2. You've gone to Vista, and windows 7 is just an incremental upgrade of that. Same as above. Really fucking expensive service pack for an already expensive OS
3. You've gone to Vista, but windows 7 is basically just XP. Thankyou for your generous contribution to the Bill Gates worlds-first-trillionaire fund. Carrying on using the same operating system as you did before.
This is only (partly) good if you stuck with XP, and Windows 7 is based on Vista. Logically this is a strong reason not to buy Vista at all, as if you needed one more.
(Astroturfing being making up fake grassroots movements)
It seems a habit of the neo-con regime in Washington to attempt this kind of thing. Normally, because they are as incompetent as they are evil, it falls flat on its face. It tends to be more successful when the CIA do it in developing countries - those who believe the so-called 'colour revolutions' were spontaneous are laughably naive.
Its a tactic they learnt straight from what Mao did during the cultural revolution. Make it sound like a popular revolt against government bureaucrats, when in fact it directly serves the interests of the leaders of those very bureaucrats.
That is frankly bullshit. It has more to do with men than women, men being for the most part (with one notable but horrific example between 1979 and 1990) the ones who seek and abuse power. They put the state into the position of the alpha male and brainwash kids into accepting this.
Society is not being feminised, it is being pushed into a submissive position. If you want something even as simple as your right to privacy, you don't try and just take it you roll over and fucking beg. Whenever someone uses violence in western society for a political purpose, people who agree with that purpose often say 'that is the wrong way to go about it' - because they are deeply indoctrinated that they are inferior and can only get anything through begging.
Microsoft almost seem to have given up on their PC products. They are churning out latest versions of Office and Windows in order to keep milking their core consumers, but their heart doesn't seem to be in it anymore. Its more like rent-seeking than software development for them now. They seem to have bought their own carefully crafted image of immortality and become complacent.
They just haven't cottoned on to the essential change in peoples perceptions of computers since the last time they fucked up good and proper (Windows ME). You used to talk to non-technical people and they would complain about how computers are too slow and computers are always getting viruses and crashing and computers always need reformatting. Now that the majority of the population have been shown there are computers that don't suffer nearly so badly from those issues, they are more and more talking about how windows always gets viruses, crashes and needs reinstalling. The crappiness of windows is no longer assumed to be just a general feature of computers that users have to live with.
The Xbox line seems still pretty strong though, with a certain demographic of gamers (I won't be too insulting seeing as I imagine a lot of the people here own an Xbox or Xbox 360, but my image of the average Halo player does involve a sideways baseball cap). In fact I think it is strong enough to keep Microsoft afloat and in the public mind no matter what happens to windows/office. Whether or not they can make an apple-like comeback and re-enter the OS market if Windows 7 doesn't miraculously save them, remains to be seen.
Simply because we have been juggling petrochemicals around for decades and have found most of the useful things they can do already.
Nanotechnology is developing as petrochemicals did decades ago. When substances are reduced to nanoscale particles, their properties change so drastically they might as well be new materials. This means that physicists are suddenly discovering thousands of new substances at once and want to see what they can do, just as chemists did with petrochemicals.
Growth in China is a result of using its population as pretty much slave labour for western companies, and nobody really has any illusions about that, but we are still all going to the Beijing Olympics and nobody is going to stop googling any time soon.
The west was always afraid of the developing world following the USSRs model for developing an economy (central planning, massive investment in heavy industry and enforced low consumer spending) because it would be bad for us, whilst we are very keen to see poor nations follow Chinas lead in whoring out their oppressed population to our corporations.
Of course it is. The removal of any serious external threat has made western civilisation lazy. Whereas before we had to be seen to be making scientific and social progress lest the masses start to see Communism as a viable alternative, there is no longer a need to do that. So, capitalism reverts to its default mode of existing solely to provide luxuries to an entrenched elite, and modern luxuries aren't that much different from those in the 1950s.
Don't be silly; There is still some life to be squeezed out of the workforce. The idea that we still have the 8 hour day is a joke - if you work in an unskilled job you generally have to take overtime or a second job to make ends meet, and in a skilled profession you are normally expected to work out of hours.
This is capitalism. Endless, soul destroying toil for everyone who doesn't have the necessary lack of ethics to be an entrepreneur.
It might be that the BBC hasn't said anything vaguely challenging since Greg Dyke left and it was turned into a mouthpiece for New Labor (sic) and the middle England I-reckon-right brigade that supports them.
I can't recall the name of the program, but it is out there, it is fairly easy to obtain, and it really pisses blizzard off. Pretty much like bnetd did.
Why would canonical make Ubuntu anything other than it is already? The only thing windows is better for is running windows-specific software, something Wine is taking steps to correct.
Ubuntu isn't going to kill windows any time soon, but normal people are beginning to realise there are other operating systems, and that in itself is dangerous for windows.
Exactly. I'd also like to add that it won't be immediately clear what you need until you really need it. For example; you buy a new computer and bring it home. You've got office installed already so you start typing up an essay. After a few hours of work you have 5000 words down, then decide to spell check it. Ooops, you don't have that module installed. But you can buy it now over the internet for only £29.99! At that point, its harder to just say 'fuck microsoft'.
What's worse, is if such a 'convenient' system for buying new modules is implemented it will almost certainly mean leaving your card details with microsoft - and card details fairly strongly identify individuals. Its a DRM wet dream.
No matter how much cheaper and prettier consoles get, they still won't be fully fledged computers that you can do with as you will.
With only consoles as viable games platforms, the modding scene will essentially die. Seeing as this is the primary source of independent games these days, then expect the standard of games to plummet as publishers have no real incentive to produce quality.
Furthermore, console makers have this tendency to lock you into their proprietary games networks, and unlike the PC it is not possible to get around this.
Microsoft intends to reverse the mistake of Vista by making an operating system that continues in the direction of Vista even further, and force users to pay continuously for the privilege. All this and they don't plan to release it until 2010 giving Mac OS X and Ubuntu a chance to chip away at their market dominance for two years whilst their current top of the range OS flops.
Yeah, but who do you think made up the rule of thumb;)
Seriously though, you can't really make that kind of prediction with such a new field of technology. It would be like trying to guess how far along the Manhattan project was as a civilian in 1942.
Whilst interesting, this guys piece is the crypto equivalent of the Drake equation; sound maths, but it doesn't tell us anything because we have no way of knowing any of the variables.
He makes an extremely cogent argument, but it is hampered by the lack of information we have about the state of the art in quantum computers.
Domestic spying is massively popular with western governments right now, and if you think that the NSA and GCHQ aren't doing secret research into quantum computers you are out of your mind. Furthermore, it is a commandment of signals intelligence that you do not let the enemy know you have broken his code - and in this case the enemy is us. We have no idea how far along they are. We have no idea what the generational length is for the quantum computers that are certainly being developed in secret.
Basically, this essay could be published and make just as much sense either before or after a critical breakthrough had been made by one of the aforementioned agencies and they hadn't told anyone. Thus, we have no way of knowing if we are already past that point or not.
Given that it has already been shown that quantum computers are not infallible, would it not make sense now to start working on encryption methods designed to flummox them?
A bunch of known liars destroy evidence that could incriminate them. What the fuck were you thinking when you re-elected these people? Did you seriously expect such textbook megalomaniacs to not do this? Just how naive are you?
You've been idiotic enough to put people in power who really like power, and they aren't going anywhere any time soon. You might think the coming election will help - but mark my ways even if the face and the haircut (and possibly even the gender) change, they will still find a way to retain power. And it is all your own bloody fault.
A lot of people in the IT industry are awash in the rabid market-worship that defines modern political life, and thus see everything through the lens of capitalism. To him, arguments about which product to buy really are as important as a decades long political and religious struggle in which people are losing their lives (largely because most of the people who are killed are too poor to buy consumer electronics and so as far as people like him are concerned, do not exist).
Really? Perhaps that is why I wasn't able to do error calculations at 2 in the morning whilst off my head on 8 pints of wifebeater. I've also heard it can affect your driving skills.
I'm so glad people are getting paid to do this research.
I simply cannot wait until you ignorant, selfish Enoch Powell worshipping cocksuckers are all dead and in the ground so we can undo the damage you've done.
From any given graduating class from any school, some will succeed more than others. You can either bitch and moan about that, or figure out why that is and how you can stay on the upside of the discrepancy. Fairness has little to do with it--as with most things in life.
But that is the problem; I know precisely why others succeed where I fail. There is a single set of skills that allow people to quickly advance in industry and they have no technical basis. It is about acumen, cunning, the ability to lie and manipulate. These are the things that make a manager or an entrepreneur, and the only things that society gives any significant rewards for. Basically, to get anywhere you have to be a total dick, and I don't want to be a dick.
I was shitcanned from my last IT job in favour of a web designer who left a website with phpmyadmin open to outside ip addresses and without password protection. He had 15-20 years experience on me, I had the advantage of not being a drooling moron. Why can't people be paid for what they do rather than how long they've been doing it?
Slashdot Mirror
To be honest, its hard to get excited about this with the LHC coming online soon. I guess this is of interest to Americans though.
If you are a windows who^H^H^Huser then this is unlikely to be great news:
1. You've stuck with XP, and windows 7 is just an incremental upgrade of that - you end up paying hundreds for what amounts to a service pack and a polish of the UI
2. You've gone to Vista, and windows 7 is just an incremental upgrade of that. Same as above. Really fucking expensive service pack for an already expensive OS
3. You've gone to Vista, but windows 7 is basically just XP. Thankyou for your generous contribution to the Bill Gates worlds-first-trillionaire fund. Carrying on using the same operating system as you did before.
This is only (partly) good if you stuck with XP, and Windows 7 is based on Vista. Logically this is a strong reason not to buy Vista at all, as if you needed one more.
(Astroturfing being making up fake grassroots movements)
It seems a habit of the neo-con regime in Washington to attempt this kind of thing. Normally, because they are as incompetent as they are evil, it falls flat on its face. It tends to be more successful when the CIA do it in developing countries - those who believe the so-called 'colour revolutions' were spontaneous are laughably naive.
Its a tactic they learnt straight from what Mao did during the cultural revolution. Make it sound like a popular revolt against government bureaucrats, when in fact it directly serves the interests of the leaders of those very bureaucrats.
That is frankly bullshit. It has more to do with men than women, men being for the most part (with one notable but horrific example between 1979 and 1990) the ones who seek and abuse power. They put the state into the position of the alpha male and brainwash kids into accepting this.
Society is not being feminised, it is being pushed into a submissive position. If you want something even as simple as your right to privacy, you don't try and just take it you roll over and fucking beg. Whenever someone uses violence in western society for a political purpose, people who agree with that purpose often say 'that is the wrong way to go about it' - because they are deeply indoctrinated that they are inferior and can only get anything through begging.
Microsoft almost seem to have given up on their PC products. They are churning out latest versions of Office and Windows in order to keep milking their core consumers, but their heart doesn't seem to be in it anymore. Its more like rent-seeking than software development for them now. They seem to have bought their own carefully crafted image of immortality and become complacent.
They just haven't cottoned on to the essential change in peoples perceptions of computers since the last time they fucked up good and proper (Windows ME). You used to talk to non-technical people and they would complain about how computers are too slow and computers are always getting viruses and crashing and computers always need reformatting. Now that the majority of the population have been shown there are computers that don't suffer nearly so badly from those issues, they are more and more talking about how windows always gets viruses, crashes and needs reinstalling. The crappiness of windows is no longer assumed to be just a general feature of computers that users have to live with.
The Xbox line seems still pretty strong though, with a certain demographic of gamers (I won't be too insulting seeing as I imagine a lot of the people here own an Xbox or Xbox 360, but my image of the average Halo player does involve a sideways baseball cap). In fact I think it is strong enough to keep Microsoft afloat and in the public mind no matter what happens to windows/office. Whether or not they can make an apple-like comeback and re-enter the OS market if Windows 7 doesn't miraculously save them, remains to be seen.
Simply because we have been juggling petrochemicals around for decades and have found most of the useful things they can do already.
Nanotechnology is developing as petrochemicals did decades ago. When substances are reduced to nanoscale particles, their properties change so drastically they might as well be new materials. This means that physicists are suddenly discovering thousands of new substances at once and want to see what they can do, just as chemists did with petrochemicals.
Thanks for the boost :)
Growth in China is a result of using its population as pretty much slave labour for western companies, and nobody really has any illusions about that, but we are still all going to the Beijing Olympics and nobody is going to stop googling any time soon.
The west was always afraid of the developing world following the USSRs model for developing an economy (central planning, massive investment in heavy industry and enforced low consumer spending) because it would be bad for us, whilst we are very keen to see poor nations follow Chinas lead in whoring out their oppressed population to our corporations.
Of course it is. The removal of any serious external threat has made western civilisation lazy. Whereas before we had to be seen to be making scientific and social progress lest the masses start to see Communism as a viable alternative, there is no longer a need to do that. So, capitalism reverts to its default mode of existing solely to provide luxuries to an entrenched elite, and modern luxuries aren't that much different from those in the 1950s.
Don't be silly; There is still some life to be squeezed out of the workforce. The idea that we still have the 8 hour day is a joke - if you work in an unskilled job you generally have to take overtime or a second job to make ends meet, and in a skilled profession you are normally expected to work out of hours.
This is capitalism. Endless, soul destroying toil for everyone who doesn't have the necessary lack of ethics to be an entrepreneur.
It might be that the BBC hasn't said anything vaguely challenging since Greg Dyke left and it was turned into a mouthpiece for New Labor (sic) and the middle England I-reckon-right brigade that supports them.
I can't recall the name of the program, but it is out there, it is fairly easy to obtain, and it really pisses blizzard off. Pretty much like bnetd did.
Why would canonical make Ubuntu anything other than it is already? The only thing windows is better for is running windows-specific software, something Wine is taking steps to correct.
Ubuntu isn't going to kill windows any time soon, but normal people are beginning to realise there are other operating systems, and that in itself is dangerous for windows.
Exactly. I'd also like to add that it won't be immediately clear what you need until you really need it. For example; you buy a new computer and bring it home. You've got office installed already so you start typing up an essay. After a few hours of work you have 5000 words down, then decide to spell check it. Ooops, you don't have that module installed. But you can buy it now over the internet for only £29.99! At that point, its harder to just say 'fuck microsoft'.
What's worse, is if such a 'convenient' system for buying new modules is implemented it will almost certainly mean leaving your card details with microsoft - and card details fairly strongly identify individuals. Its a DRM wet dream.
No matter how much cheaper and prettier consoles get, they still won't be fully fledged computers that you can do with as you will.
With only consoles as viable games platforms, the modding scene will essentially die. Seeing as this is the primary source of independent games these days, then expect the standard of games to plummet as publishers have no real incentive to produce quality.
Furthermore, console makers have this tendency to lock you into their proprietary games networks, and unlike the PC it is not possible to get around this.
Microsoft intends to reverse the mistake of Vista by making an operating system that continues in the direction of Vista even further, and force users to pay continuously for the privilege. All this and they don't plan to release it until 2010 giving Mac OS X and Ubuntu a chance to chip away at their market dominance for two years whilst their current top of the range OS flops.
Yeah, but who do you think made up the rule of thumb ;)
Seriously though, you can't really make that kind of prediction with such a new field of technology. It would be like trying to guess how far along the Manhattan project was as a civilian in 1942.
Whilst interesting, this guys piece is the crypto equivalent of the Drake equation; sound maths, but it doesn't tell us anything because we have no way of knowing any of the variables.
He makes an extremely cogent argument, but it is hampered by the lack of information we have about the state of the art in quantum computers.
Domestic spying is massively popular with western governments right now, and if you think that the NSA and GCHQ aren't doing secret research into quantum computers you are out of your mind. Furthermore, it is a commandment of signals intelligence that you do not let the enemy know you have broken his code - and in this case the enemy is us. We have no idea how far along they are. We have no idea what the generational length is for the quantum computers that are certainly being developed in secret.
Basically, this essay could be published and make just as much sense either before or after a critical breakthrough had been made by one of the aforementioned agencies and they hadn't told anyone. Thus, we have no way of knowing if we are already past that point or not.
Given that it has already been shown that quantum computers are not infallible, would it not make sense now to start working on encryption methods designed to flummox them?
A bunch of known liars destroy evidence that could incriminate them. What the fuck were you thinking when you re-elected these people? Did you seriously expect such textbook megalomaniacs to not do this? Just how naive are you?
You've been idiotic enough to put people in power who really like power, and they aren't going anywhere any time soon. You might think the coming election will help - but mark my ways even if the face and the haircut (and possibly even the gender) change, they will still find a way to retain power. And it is all your own bloody fault.
A lot of people in the IT industry are awash in the rabid market-worship that defines modern political life, and thus see everything through the lens of capitalism. To him, arguments about which product to buy really are as important as a decades long political and religious struggle in which people are losing their lives (largely because most of the people who are killed are too poor to buy consumer electronics and so as far as people like him are concerned, do not exist).
Me too, especially as the Nobel Prize makes an awesome coaster.
Yeah, and his model of the atom is incomplete. I blame the booze.
Really? Perhaps that is why I wasn't able to do error calculations at 2 in the morning whilst off my head on 8 pints of wifebeater. I've also heard it can affect your driving skills.
I'm so glad people are getting paid to do this research.
I simply cannot wait until you ignorant, selfish Enoch Powell worshipping cocksuckers are all dead and in the ground so we can undo the damage you've done.
But that is the problem; I know precisely why others succeed where I fail. There is a single set of skills that allow people to quickly advance in industry and they have no technical basis. It is about acumen, cunning, the ability to lie and manipulate. These are the things that make a manager or an entrepreneur, and the only things that society gives any significant rewards for. Basically, to get anywhere you have to be a total dick, and I don't want to be a dick.
I was shitcanned from my last IT job in favour of a web designer who left a website with phpmyadmin open to outside ip addresses and without password protection. He had 15-20 years experience on me, I had the advantage of not being a drooling moron. Why can't people be paid for what they do rather than how long they've been doing it?