I generally agree with you. However I thing the idiot-gateway which Google is poised to reopen could be beneficial if managed correctly (which it won't be of course, but let me dream...) Imagine if every newsgroup could create a quiz (authentication of who represents a newsgroup left to imaginiation) and lodge that quiz with lamebraingate, henceforth Google. Now when Joe Lamer wants to post his javascript question to comp.lang.perl.misc, Google would ask him three questions about the charter of clpm. When he answers them wrong, Google would show him the group faq and pointers to other newsgroups based on the words in his proposed post. Also, newsgroups could enforce forms for certain types of newbie questions. Using clpm as an example again, It would be great if every querent had to answer:
What OS is the program running under?
Do you have shell access to the machine or are you only able to FTP scripts to it?
Enough daydreams. As always, Death of Usenet Predicted; Film at 11
...this could very well cost me tens of thousands of dollars.
And that's not the fault of MAPS. It's the fault of macromedia, who deliberately took an action which would cut them off from part of the internet. Why don't you sue them instead?
Just because the scanning has been centralized and industrialized on a massive scale doesn't mean it should be. Instead of shipping tons of paper to a central location to put it through a very expensive, fast machine, why not scan it locally through a cheap scanner? Then a computer can upload the data to a central server. Another approach would be to use fax machines calling a tally server, since sheet-feeding fax machines are more common than sheet-feeding scanners.
To put it another way, the power of the large scanner has become a self-fulfilling prophecy - we aggregate because we have large scanners, and need large scanners because we aggegate. But with the internet, physical aggregation is not needed for data aggregation.
I haven't thought this position through, but I increasingly believe that the 'closed answers' regime is a deeply unfair one, relying as it does on 'security through obscurity.' It creates a small minority of test-takers who know all the (previously asked) questions and answers. I think that this group exists for every sizeable test of this type. I wonder if this could be solved with parametrically generated questions - the question itself is merely a framework or script which when run (on a per-test-taker basis) creates a unique question instance. Under this scheme, the parametric templates would be released to the students, and would in fact constitute the definitive curriculum.
Actually, that raises an interesting point which might apply to other areas like Carnivore. Is it possible to construct a computer which is trusted by two adversarial parties? In other words, the computer can prove to everyone that it is running the same code it claims to be running. This could easily be done with the assistance of a trusted party, which would modify the kernel. Doing it fully 'peer to peer' sounds hard, though.
Most of the best walls are owned by government agencies. They are part of freeway overpasses, the LA river, and similar structures. It's true that in LA the government only allows lame childish official murals on these huge tempting expanses of concrete. And then it's a crime to deface the crappy murals! Effectively, it is a government-controlled medium of expression, with predictably bad results. Good art rarely begins with submitting a proposal to a government agency.
Clearly, stiffer penalties are needed when corporations violate the law...
Why? The penalty should be proportional to the offense, which is a very minor one in this case. Don't take this the wrong way, but you sound like some uptight Senator demanding stiffer penalties for 'cyber-terrorism' or something. Who really cares if a person/organization squirts their message all over the sidewalk? I'm glad it's (mildly) illegal so it doesn't become a self-righteous, entrenched phenomenon (imagine the sidewalk-spraying industry getting all RIAA and whining when people start teleporting to work), but I'm more amused than offended by those who break this law.
The "culture of hate" didn't just spring up overnight out of nothing. I've hated Microsoft when I didn't know a single other person who cared about the issue. I've hated Microsoft before I knew of any alternatives. I hated them for making computers ugly and unusable. I left the computer world to escape Windows. With the rise of free Unix I reentered the computer world. Hate is the gut feeling I get when I have to use a Microsoft product. I didn't get my hate from slashdot or anywhere else except Microsoft's deliberately vile products. MS is a creeping pestilence and the sooner it's eradicated the better. By the way, I don't care what Linus says. He doesn't speak for me or for any Linux users. He can go to work for Microsoft and my feelings towards Microsoft won't be any friendlier.
The operation would be linked to the Internet via the existing fiber-optic line from the North Slope, which connects with the North Pacific fiber-optic cable
A giant colo center with only one link to the outside world? I think most colo customers want more redundancy.
"All of our turbines would be spinning 24-7 to serve nothing but the needs of the data center."
All? I guess that means no redundancy in the power supply. If one turbine goes down, some computers must go down. I doubt they're really this dumb - more likely this is a Vice-Presidential distortion.
...and its isolation provides security.
A glib statement that doesn't withstand scrutiny. Colo security basically consists of preventing unauthorized people from sneaking in (access control), and preventing forced entry (physical security). If they abdicate the first responsibility based on 'isolation' then anyone can travel up there, waltz in and copy tons of credit card numbers. The existence of this inferior access control would become known and would provide incentive. Therefore, they can't skimp on access control. When it comes to physical security, isolation is even less beneficial. All physical barriers are designed to stall an intruder for a certain period of time. If a colo is in metropolitan area, the police can always respond before hostiles could take over the facility. But if this new facility is truly isolated, it risks 'SeaLand syndrome' - a violent attack with little risk.
Not really disagreeing, but the Principal in this case is not an advocate of very strict interpretations. He felt that 10 days was an appropriate suspension. He explicitly rejected the 'zero-tolerance' idea.
but why should I run an insecure OS then download an add-on solution, when I could just download OpenBSD for hardcore security?
OpenBSD does not protect against user error. Like any Unix, it's a springloaded trap - one false move and you've given you're privileges to an attacker. One false move by a root process and the attacker has root. Lomac is clearly trying to prevent this. Take for example a program which is not "part of" OpenBSD, hence not audited. It is suid root, and by manipulating an environment variable you can make it read a tainted file from an unprivileged location, resulting in buffer overflow and root. Lomac, as I understand it, would notice that this privileged process read an unprivileged file and demote the privilege of the process. Hence, no root for the attacker. Although I agree with you partially; Linux needs more common sense security and less high-tech security addons. I think one reason that NT machines are insecure is that their security model, while admirable, is too complicated.
Easy, Bob Carol and Dave publish their public keys.
OK, so Mallet also publishes his public key. Alice encrypts the file and sends it to him. Or can you think of some way she will differentiate Mallet from any other random stranger?
I don't see how steganography will help file sharing. Look at it this way: Alice wants to publish a file F such that random strangers Bob, Carol and Dave can access it. However if Mallet finds F, he will force Alice to remove it. So Alice publishes the file in a steganographic format X(F). Hooray, she's safe from Mallet. Unfortunately, Bob, Carol and Dave don't have the key to convert the published file X(F) back to X. So Alice must also publish the key somehow. How will Alice publish the key so that Mallet can't get it? The fundamental problem is that there's no way to publish information to strangers such that only 'good guys' can read it.
I'm surprised they're attacking the GPL head-on. It smacks of panic. The main effect of this offensive will be to raise awareness of the GPL and free software. The business types they're addressing, who probably know little about computers, will say "Methinks the lady doth protest too much". Microsoft has been a clever strategist in the past, and there are any number of ways to skin the GPL cat. This isn't one of them. If I were Microsoft, I'd:
Focus on locking up the hardware layer so other OS's can't run.
Seek to replace HTML with a binary encrypted format that looks the same to M$ users. Support this in FrontPage and IIS, and make "legacy HTML" a checkbox that has to be turned on. If it works, remove the checkobx in a few releases.
Co-opt Linux by buying distro vendors via shell companies.
Tighten up SMB to lock out Samba.
Most importantly, never admit that I'm worried about free software!
Gartner notices that people spend a lot of time on mail, and concludes that the time is 'wasted'. I'm not sure why. A large part of my work is done in responding to mail. I previously worked at a very stone-age company where communication was via fax, phone, email, and snail. It was very inefficient and I had to put a lot of energy into chasing people down and logging inbound and outbound snail and fax. Now I work at a place that is 100% mail and web - I haven't seen a single paper document since I've been here.[1] It is much more efficient, less messy and easier to search, archive, forward, and grind through ad-hoc scripts. Having said that, it can be challenging to deal with a high volume of mail. If you're on Unix, implement a good filter in perl with the Mail::Audit module. Separate stuff addressed to you from lists, so you don't miss an urgent mail while drowning in list traffic. Use an efficient MUA like mutt. I do wish very much that corporations would instill some basic mail rules in employees, like:
Don't quote the entire message you're replying to. If you're forwarding to a new person, then forward and quote. Otherwise, trim, quote properly and attribute properly. And don't quote Jeopardy style.
Trim the recipients before replying - do they all need to see your reply?
View the message through the recipient's eyes - did you include all the information needed to understand your message?
Value the recipients' time above yours. Take the time to compose a clear, concise message. Don't include word/excel/pdf attachments if the data can be expressed simply in the body of the mail.
[1] Meaning, a document inflicted on me by others. I've printed out a few program listings and mails.
Using XP will not solve the problems if the project is poorly managed, or there are no clear requirements.
I've never used XP, but I've glanced at some of their books. Part of XP focuses on the problems you mentioned. For example, XP advocates using the 3x5 index card as the unit of customer requirements - each requirement is written on one card. By arranging the cards in a rectangular grid, it's possible to communicate the time/people/requirements tradeoff graphically. The height of the grid is the number of programmers. The width of the grid is the number of weeks needed. (Yes, it doesn't illustrate mythical-man-month well) While this isn't a silver bullet, it could help bridge the gap between programmers and customers/management. XP is only partially about programming - it's largely about interfacing with the customer.
First, Doug attaches too much importance to the fact the Linux is free as in beer:
Our products need to show long term value that goes beyond the initial purchase price so the argument becomes not how much does your operating system cost up front but more importantly, how much will your operating system save you over the years that you use it.
and
so the fact that the OS is "free" really has little bearing on the fully loaded costs of deploying and using a computing platform.
In the Linux-based systems I've worked on, the acquisition cost of the OS was not even a factor. Rather, the stability, flexibility and remote management were the factors that made Linux far more attractive than Microsoft's offerings. So while I agree with Doug that initial cost of zero has little meaning, I disagree with his implication that any Microsoft OS offers lower fully loaded costs of deploying. With Microsoft, you're bleeding money all the way. The ratio of sysadmins to machines is too high. Then there's this 'pretty good' stuff:
... Linux - a pretty good server operating system...
and
Linux is a pretty good collection of technology...
I have no problem with that characterization in a vacuum. However, if you're going to call Linux 'pretty good', then I hope you call Win2K 'pretty bad', and I get the feeling that Doug wouldn't do that. Given the framework of Microsoft overpraise that implicitly lurks in the background ("innovative", etc.) "pretty good" sounds like damning with faint praise. I sense that Doug is giving us a polite, euphemistic version of the anti-Linux FUD that Microsoft is delivering to large customers.
The seller quotes a price and the buyer decides whether or not to pay it.
First, there's a difference between proposing a deal (what you described) and dictating a deal (what Microsoft does). Second, the description you gave only describes one of several ways a deal can be made in a free market. It's equally likely that the buyer makes an offer, and the seller accepts, rejects or counters. But that's a tangent. The real point is that Microsoft's two-tiered pricing for NT is enabled by lies (pretending there's a real difference) and sabotage (deliberately making it hard for Microsoft desktops to interoperate with non-Microsoft servers.) Microsoft isn't part of the free market any more than an extortionist who sells you 'protection'. They happen to still be 'out on the street' awaiting an appeal of their conviction.
Maybe Philip didn't express his idea quite right. I think his point was that the internet enables smart people to have a big impact without seeking permission from some entrenched gatekeeper. The creators of Unix were a bit unique - they worked in a time and place where the gatekeepers were unusually lax, and they got permission to build this very cool, geeky project on the premise that they were building a text processing system for the patent department.
The lowering of the economic barrier has made open source much more viable, not vice-versa.
Slashdot would have been theoretically possible without Free software - it could be built on Sun/Oracle/Netscape Enterprise. But those products require money, and money generally requires permission from gatekeepers of some kind, and Slashdot wouldn't be what it is if some investor or faculty committee had the upper hand from the start. I'd say the flourishing web is a result of three things: Cheap generic hardware (which you cited), Free software, and affordable bandwidth.
You're going to fork over the money because Microsoft wants you to. Is that hard to understand? They are running a business and have decided that a server edition is going to cost more than a desktop edition.
And that attitude is just what the original poster was complaining of. Contrary to the implication above, it is not customary in a free market for sellers to dictate terms to buyers.
Maybe Linux's higher profile is partly a result of its name. "Linux" makes a great battle flag around which to rally - "BSD" does not. This is true on two levels. First the superficial level: Linux is a cool word, evocative of both "Linus" and "Unix". It's the kind of simple-yet-catchy name on which companies spend millions. BSD is yet another three letter acronym, and not a cool one like NSA or ATA. I can't explain or prove this lack of coolness, but I do remember noticing it upon first hearing the name FreeBSD. Second, the level of representation: Linux is Linus's OS. The name matches the story, and it's a simple story. Every time you use the word Linux you're touching upon Linux's primal creation myth. Of course the same could be said of "BSD" - it reminds us of Bill Joy (I think) copying tapes of the "Berkeley Software Distribution", a modified version of AT&T Unix. Except, unfortunately, this story has little to do with the reality of *BSD today. If the BSD's could choose their names now, they might be something like Servix, Securix, and Portix - names which convey the core message of the OS identity, rather than some baggage from the past. So how do these stories look to the casual observer? Linux: "Finnish student Linus Torvalds created Linux, a free OS which rose from hobbyist roots to challenge Microsoft, Sun and HP." BSD: "At one time, a bunch of people at UC Berkeley made changes to AT&T Unix, and distributed tapes. Then AT&T sued them, and the court..." (Casual observer wanders off.)
I assume that you mean 11khz maximum frequency, not 11khz sample rate (which would allow 5.5khz maximum frequency). 11k is not that bad. It's only one octave short of 20khz, which is generally accepted as the limit of human hearing. There is very little musical energy in this top octave. It merely adds a sense of 'air' or 'space'. I know from experience (working in professional sound) that you can have a great-sounding sound system that is mostly or completely lacking the top octave. For example, the Meyer MSL-10's used by Ultrasound on the Grateful Dead tours top out at 12khz. Out of the many things that contribute to great sound, this top octave is not one of the most important. Anyhow, people seize on numbers like this because the things that affect the quality of digital audio playback are so complicated that it's tempting to focus on something simple and understandable. I would bet that there are serious problems with the ipaq's dac/amplifier that greatly outweigh the loss of one octave. By the same token, 16 bits is overkill for a device like this, because it implies 96dB dynamic range, which can't be accomplished in a small battery-powered device. Even good electronics running on split 15volt supplies have trouble reaching 90dB dynamic range (ratio of loudest signal to noise floor). To phrase it differently, the least significant bits of this DAC might as well be disconnected because they cannot output a signal that will rise above the noise floor.
I find it amusing that the worst purveyer of unprompted MS-bashing, Malda, is also the only editor who regularly admits to using Windows.
I find that quite understandable. People who don't deal with Windows on a regular basis generally don't have very strong feelings about it. This makes it easy (and fun) to maintain an attitude of casual scorn and contempt toward that particular festering pile. When one is forced to use Windows, however, one's attitude unfortunately degenerates into pulsating screaming hatred.
Yeah, I almost said that, but the original author didn't specify what tool he'd use to edit/etc/passwd, so I thought I should give him the benefit of the doubt.
Slashdot Mirror
Imagine if every newsgroup could create a quiz (authentication of who represents a newsgroup left to imaginiation) and lodge that quiz with lamebraingate, henceforth Google. Now when Joe Lamer wants to post his javascript question to comp.lang.perl.misc, Google would ask him three questions about the charter of clpm. When he answers them wrong, Google would show him the group faq and pointers to other newsgroups based on the words in his proposed post.
Also, newsgroups could enforce forms for certain types of newbie questions. Using clpm as an example again, It would be great if every querent had to answer:
- What OS is the program running under?
- Do you have shell access to the machine or are you only able to FTP scripts to it?
Enough daydreams. As always, Death of Usenet Predicted; Film at 11Just because the scanning has been centralized and industrialized on a massive scale doesn't mean it should be. Instead of shipping tons of paper to a central location to put it through a very expensive, fast machine, why not scan it locally through a cheap scanner? Then a computer can upload the data to a central server.
Another approach would be to use fax machines calling a tally server, since sheet-feeding fax machines are more common than sheet-feeding scanners.
To put it another way, the power of the large scanner has become a self-fulfilling prophecy - we aggregate because we have large scanners, and need large scanners because we aggegate. But with the internet, physical aggregation is not needed for data aggregation.
I haven't thought this position through, but I increasingly believe that the 'closed answers' regime is a deeply unfair one, relying as it does on 'security through obscurity.' It creates a small minority of test-takers who know all the (previously asked) questions and answers. I think that this group exists for every sizeable test of this type.
I wonder if this could be solved with parametrically generated questions - the question itself is merely a framework or script which when run (on a per-test-taker basis) creates a unique question instance.
Under this scheme, the parametric templates would be released to the students, and would in fact constitute the definitive curriculum.
Actually, that raises an interesting point which might apply to other areas like Carnivore. Is it possible to construct a computer which is trusted by two adversarial parties? In other words, the computer can prove to everyone that it is running the same code it claims to be running.
This could easily be done with the assistance of a trusted party, which would modify the kernel. Doing it fully 'peer to peer' sounds hard, though.
Most of the best walls are owned by government agencies. They are part of freeway overpasses, the LA river, and similar structures. It's true that in LA the government only allows lame childish official murals on these huge tempting expanses of concrete. And then it's a crime to deface the crappy murals!
Effectively, it is a government-controlled medium of expression, with predictably bad results. Good art rarely begins with submitting a proposal to a government agency.
The "culture of hate" didn't just spring up overnight out of nothing. I've hated Microsoft when I didn't know a single other person who cared about the issue. I've hated Microsoft before I knew of any alternatives. I hated them for making computers ugly and unusable. I left the computer world to escape Windows. With the rise of free Unix I reentered the computer world.
Hate is the gut feeling I get when I have to use a Microsoft product. I didn't get my hate from slashdot or anywhere else except Microsoft's deliberately vile products. MS is a creeping pestilence and the sooner it's eradicated the better.
By the way, I don't care what Linus says. He doesn't speak for me or for any Linux users. He can go to work for Microsoft and my feelings towards Microsoft won't be any friendlier.
Not really disagreeing, but the Principal in this case is not an advocate of very strict interpretations. He felt that 10 days was an appropriate suspension. He explicitly rejected the 'zero-tolerance' idea.
Take for example a program which is not "part of" OpenBSD, hence not audited. It is suid root, and by manipulating an environment variable you can make it read a tainted file from an unprivileged location, resulting in buffer overflow and root. Lomac, as I understand it, would notice that this privileged process read an unprivileged file and demote the privilege of the process. Hence, no root for the attacker.
Although I agree with you partially; Linux needs more common sense security and less high-tech security addons. I think one reason that NT machines are insecure is that their security model, while admirable, is too complicated.
I don't see how steganography will help file sharing. Look at it this way: Alice wants to publish a file F such that random strangers Bob, Carol and Dave can access it.
However if Mallet finds F, he will force Alice to remove it. So Alice publishes the file in a steganographic format X(F). Hooray, she's safe from Mallet.
Unfortunately, Bob, Carol and Dave don't have the key to convert the published file X(F) back to X. So Alice must also publish the key somehow. How will Alice publish the key so that Mallet can't get it?
The fundamental problem is that there's no way to publish information to strangers such that only 'good guys' can read it.
Microsoft has been a clever strategist in the past, and there are any number of ways to skin the GPL cat. This isn't one of them. If I were Microsoft, I'd:
Having said that, it can be challenging to deal with a high volume of mail. If you're on Unix, implement a good filter in perl with the Mail::Audit module. Separate stuff addressed to you from lists, so you don't miss an urgent mail while drowning in list traffic. Use an efficient MUA like mutt.
I do wish very much that corporations would instill some basic mail rules in employees, like:
[1] Meaning, a document inflicted on me by others. I've printed out a few program listings and mails.
I've never used XP, but I've glanced at some of their books. Part of XP focuses on the problems you mentioned. For example, XP advocates using the 3x5 index card as the unit of customer requirements - each requirement is written on one card. By arranging the cards in a rectangular grid, it's possible to communicate the time/people/requirements tradeoff graphically. The height of the grid is the number of programmers. The width of the grid is the number of weeks needed. (Yes, it doesn't illustrate mythical-man-month well) While this isn't a silver bullet, it could help bridge the gap between programmers and customers/management.
XP is only partially about programming - it's largely about interfacing with the customer.
In the Linux-based systems I've worked on, the acquisition cost of the OS was not even a factor. Rather, the stability, flexibility and remote management were the factors that made Linux far more attractive than Microsoft's offerings. So while I agree with Doug that initial cost of zero has little meaning, I disagree with his implication that any Microsoft OS offers lower fully loaded costs of deploying. With Microsoft, you're bleeding money all the way. The ratio of sysadmins to machines is too high.
Then there's this 'pretty good' stuff:
and
I have no problem with that characterization in a vacuum. However, if you're going to call Linux 'pretty good', then I hope you call Win2K 'pretty bad', and I get the feeling that Doug wouldn't do that. Given the framework of Microsoft overpraise that implicitly lurks in the background ("innovative", etc.) "pretty good" sounds like damning with faint praise. I sense that Doug is giving us a polite, euphemistic version of the anti-Linux FUD that Microsoft is delivering to large customers.
First, there's a difference between proposing a deal (what you described) and dictating a deal (what Microsoft does). Second, the description you gave only describes one of several ways a deal can be made in a free market. It's equally likely that the buyer makes an offer, and the seller accepts, rejects or counters.
But that's a tangent. The real point is that Microsoft's two-tiered pricing for NT is enabled by lies (pretending there's a real difference) and sabotage (deliberately making it hard for Microsoft desktops to interoperate with non-Microsoft servers.)
Microsoft isn't part of the free market any more than an extortionist who sells you 'protection'. They happen to still be 'out on the street' awaiting an appeal of their conviction.
Slashdot would have been theoretically possible without Free software - it could be built on Sun/Oracle/Netscape Enterprise. But those products require money, and money generally requires permission from gatekeepers of some kind, and Slashdot wouldn't be what it is if some investor or faculty committee had the upper hand from the start.
I'd say the flourishing web is a result of three things: Cheap generic hardware (which you cited), Free software, and affordable bandwidth.
And that attitude is just what the original poster was complaining of. Contrary to the implication above, it is not customary in a free market for sellers to dictate terms to buyers.
Maybe Linux's higher profile is partly a result of its name. "Linux" makes a great battle flag around which to rally - "BSD" does not. This is true on two levels.
First the superficial level: Linux is a cool word, evocative of both "Linus" and "Unix". It's the kind of simple-yet-catchy name on which companies spend millions. BSD is yet another three letter acronym, and not a cool one like NSA or ATA. I can't explain or prove this lack of coolness, but I do remember noticing it upon first hearing the name FreeBSD.
Second, the level of representation: Linux is Linus's OS. The name matches the story, and it's a simple story. Every time you use the word Linux you're touching upon Linux's primal creation myth.
Of course the same could be said of "BSD" - it reminds us of Bill Joy (I think) copying tapes of the "Berkeley Software Distribution", a modified version of AT&T Unix. Except, unfortunately, this story has little to do with the reality of *BSD today. If the BSD's could choose their names now, they might be something like Servix, Securix, and Portix - names which convey the core message of the OS identity, rather than some baggage from the past.
So how do these stories look to the casual observer? Linux: "Finnish student Linus Torvalds created Linux, a free OS which rose from hobbyist roots to challenge Microsoft, Sun and HP." BSD: "At one time, a bunch of people at UC Berkeley made changes to AT&T Unix, and distributed tapes. Then AT&T sued them, and the court..." (Casual observer wanders off.)
I assume that you mean 11khz maximum frequency, not 11khz sample rate (which would allow 5.5khz maximum frequency).
11k is not that bad. It's only one octave short of 20khz, which is generally accepted as the limit of human hearing. There is very little musical energy in this top octave. It merely adds a sense of 'air' or 'space'. I know from experience (working in professional sound) that you can have a great-sounding sound system that is mostly or completely lacking the top octave. For example, the Meyer MSL-10's used by Ultrasound on the Grateful Dead tours top out at 12khz. Out of the many things that contribute to great sound, this top octave is not one of the most important.
Anyhow, people seize on numbers like this because the things that affect the quality of digital audio playback are so complicated that it's tempting to focus on something simple and understandable. I would bet that there are serious problems with the ipaq's dac/amplifier that greatly outweigh the loss of one octave. By the same token, 16 bits is overkill for a device like this, because it implies 96dB dynamic range, which can't be accomplished in a small battery-powered device. Even good electronics running on split 15volt supplies have trouble reaching 90dB dynamic range (ratio of loudest signal to noise floor). To phrase it differently, the least significant bits of this DAC might as well be disconnected because they cannot output a signal that will rise above the noise floor.
I find that quite understandable. People who don't deal with Windows on a regular basis generally don't have very strong feelings about it. This makes it easy (and fun) to maintain an attitude of casual scorn and contempt toward that particular festering pile. When one is forced to use Windows, however, one's attitude unfortunately degenerates into pulsating screaming hatred.
Yeah, I almost said that, but the original author didn't specify what tool he'd use to edit /etc/passwd, so I thought I should give him the benefit of the doubt.