I do too, I've read it a dozen times. My copy is so worn and dog-eared, I really need to find another. The description of the bombs hitting New York haunted my nightmares for months.
Or for a more realistic approach, try Warday and the Journey Onwards, by Whitley Strieber. It's excellent, well-researched, and frightening as hell-- it's a tour of the US after a "limited" nuclear exchange with the USSR and journals the effects of it.
(Yes, *that* Whitley Strieber, but it was before he went all wacko and started writing about nothing but UFOs. This book is really good though.)
I don't know what government you're under, but there aren't many that have any kind of beef with South Korea. They're pretty upstanding world citizens.
Doesn't work is doesn't work, it doesn't matter *why* it doesn't work. People point that out because they want it to work, not because they want to blame somebody or point fingers.
Really? Last time I tried Linux, and admittedly this was a few years ago, I couldn't get an external HD working. I figured it was because it was Firewire, not USB, and the Firewire port was actually hitched on to a Creative sound card.
Given this was a couple years ago. But don't knee-jerk and declare it a lie until you know the circumstances-- can you guarantee, *absolutely guarantee*, that all external HDs work?
Unless Windows 7 has changed radically how drivers work under Windows, those usually require user installation on drivers. So, in different words, you're bullshitting.
Depends on what version of Windows you're using as a baseline, but I can say with some certainty: yes it's changed, because you're completely wrong.
I've yet to have to manually install a driver in Vista or Windows 7, and even XP did a pretty damned good job of finding all my drivers a few years ago when I re-installed it. (IIRC, the one it was missing was my USB wifi dongle, everything else it got fine.)
I have a radical idea: maybe you should actually *use* Vista or Windows 7 before slamming it. Just a thought.
Zunes are actually pretty damned good. They don't sell because they were late to the market, and Microsoft isn't "cool," not because the hardware or software is inferior in any way.
Yeah, well, here's another piece of advice for geeks everywhere: You have to cope with the world you're in. To paraphrase Rumsfield, you interact with the world you have, not to the world you want.
You can't make up some simplified, logical, world in your imagination and then cope with that, that doesn't work. Geeks seems to be particularly guilty of this. And when someone doesn't agree with their imaginary world, they declare that person is "stupid". Like my friend who won't accept the term "AJAX" for web programming-- despite it being a useful term to describe something that had no one-word description before, despite millions of people knowing it and thousands of articles and books using it, he thinks everybody who uses it is an idiot.
Ok, I didn't watch all 5 minutes, because that godawful techno music made me want to tear my eyeballs out.
But the only message I got is that when you drag windows around in Compiz, they have massive amounts of ugly tearing-- so much so that it even shows up in a compressed YouTube uploaded video. If my Vista computer looked half that bad, I'd throw it in a dumpster.
I had a manager once I didn't get along with, and our 1-on-1 meetings weren't very pleasant. I actually got up and walked-out on one, when she told me "this isn't an 8 to 4 job, you know". The previous night, I'd actually been up until midnight working on a particularly difficult problem.
But when I thought about it, I was being the ass-- not her. How could she have known I was up until midnight working? I was working from home. I didn't send out any emails saying I was working that late. At that time, our company didn't have timecards, and even if it had this was the next day, long before the timecard would have been submitted.
Anyway, the next day I apologized, and since then I've always managed to find some excuse to send out an email (CCing my management) whenever I'm working extra late, just so they're aware that it's happening. Since then I haven't had any problems.
The moral of the story: don't "brag" brag. Be smart about it. Managers can't judge you based on things they don't know about. This article basically says the same thing. I know we're all geeks and we hate actually talking to people, but the time you spend communicating to your co-workers is golden, slack on whatever else you want, but never hesitate to pop off an email.
Presumably their normal work is making cars *quieter*, since that's what normal people want. (At least, making the interiors quieter.) I'm guessing none of them were hired with the job description: "make car noisier."
I didn't realize Python was so large... 10 MB for the runtime? Ouch.
Either way, my point is that if you want Python supported in the web world, do it the proper front-door method, rather than this goofy language translation stuff. (Obviously, it would need to be implemented a plug-in until all browsers supported it) I still agree with that sentiment, 10 MB or not.
The intrinsic objects are too limited to be useful, so much so that now there are more than 4 different common framework projects to handle all the inconsistency in implementation and they're all incompatible with each other.
Whoa, slow down. Blame where blame is due. That point is DOM's fault, but Javascript's. (Well, ok, DOM's not to blame for the frameworks being incompatible with each other, but the shittiness of DOM is why they exist at all.)
If you implemented Python or Ruby in a browser, it would have the exact same problems with DOM.
That's funny, when I click on last year's file created in Word, it just works. You know, seeing as both Microsoft Office seamlessly installs in Linux with Wine and works just as good (if not better with faster loading times due to superior and quicker file systems) as it does on Windows. Of course, who needs to pay for Office when OpenOffice is free and also opens up those Word documents for me.
That doesn't change the fact that installing Ubuntu will FORMAT THE FUCKING DRIVE. You gigantic douchebag.
Hey, I don't know what a 3 dongle is either, but I can damn sure tell you this: My Novatel USB720 I got from Verizon works like a dream. I just plug it in to a fresh install of Linux and click connect. Within 5 seconds, I'm online. No bullshit drivers or crapware to install. Contrast this with Windows where I have to install said drivers and crapware, start up the craplication to connect with, wait the requisite 30 seconds to a minute for it to connect and then be consistently dropped every hour or so necessitating going through the whole 30 second process again. And since we are trading anecdotes here, I'll indulge you further. My zd1211 USB wifi network adapter just worked. Windows, ha ha, install the driver, use the shitty software and again, get a connection drop every hour or so. Yes, I tried it, yes that is what happened. Ethernet adapter, in Linux, of course it worked. Windows, of course install more crapware.
So when these people hand out the Ubuntu CDs, they're also going to hand out known-compatible hardware to ensure that everything on their system works correctly?
The point of the exercise is that they're handing these CDs to random people on the street, people who could have *any* random assortment of hardware. Sure, we all know that if you have supported hardware, Ubuntu works fine. That's not the point. The point is that there's no way of knowing whether these people have supported hardware or not!
So. You completely missed the point, once again. You gigantic douchebag.
Well, that's a point. I still think this whole concept is a little daft, considering that web scripting has been designed to be language-independent from day one. I mean, IE has been the only browser to really embrace it, but still-- no reason other browsers can't.
[script type="text/python"][/script]. Let one of the major browsers implement it, and see if the others follow... there's probably already DOM-access libraries in Python, yes?
Seems to make a hell of a lot more sense than this translation stuff.
Insert Ubuntu CD, boot, click on Install, answer a few questions and that's it.
Ok, now I just need to open my wedding invitation Word file from last year and-- ALL MY DOCUMENTS ARE GONE!!!!
(Psst: you're missing a huge step here.)
Plug in your 3 mobile broadband USB dongle and you're on the Internet.
What the fuck is a "3 mobile broadband USB dongle?" I certainly don't have one of those. Will Ubuntu work with my laptop's built-in Wifi? Possibly. My desktop's USB wifi? Doubtful. My desktop's built-in network card? Probably. But all of those answers have built-in vagueness.
How many Windows users have to install from scratch anyway ?
I believe that is mostly, if not entirely correct. Obviously, there is a design flaw in security; a user account should never be capable of screwing up system files and system settings. Period.
Name a current Windows exploit that allows a user, with the default "User" permissions, to screw up system files and system settings. Name one.
The current version of Windows is Vista Service Pack 2.
That is speculation, opinion, and FUD. Unix like systems are simply not prone to the types of exploits that Windows has always been wide open to. (ActiveX for example)
Name an ActiveX exploit that works for the current version of Windows and IE with the default settings. (Obviously, if the user goes out of their way to disable security features, all bets are off.)
The current IE version is 8.
It's easy to imagine that malware writers would shift to Linux, but Linux' response would be to write patches after patches, and shut each exploit down as it was exposed.
As opposed to Microsoft's response, which is to... what? Hire belly dancers and throw a 1001 Arabian Nights theme party?
Seriously, WTF is going through your head when you write things like this. I simply can't imagine.
If that were entirely true, then the same exploits would work on Linux. I don't see that - can you provide any citations?
How about you prove your assertions first? You've made two big ones.
Unix like OS's have set the example. Establish trusted repositories for software. TRUSTED repositories, not a bazaar type place where just everyone can put software.
Yes, but you're breaking the rules of the original scenario: you can't turn Windows into an "iPhone App Store" for a half-dozen reasons, not least of which is it would be anti-competitive. Windows doesn't have the luxury of being able to completely shut-out commercial software development like Linux has.
Look into why Excel beat Lotus 1-2-3, or why Word beat WordPerfect sometime. Or, hell, look at Internet Explorer for an extremely well-publicized example. (Briefly: it's easy to dominate the web browser market when your primary opposition continuously ships buggy products, then stops releasing it altogether for a solid 3 years.)
The OS stuff, you're right, they kind of just inherited because they were lucky enough to pick the right hardware to put their OS on. But in other markets, Microsoft succeeded through their own merits. AKA, not fucking up as much as their competition.
Blug. I see your point, and I don't know what the solution is, but it hurts me deeply.
There has to be *some* way to get a SQL Server installation at that client, right? Access without a real DB is just a giant WTF waiting to happen-- at best, you'll have to redevelop it when the company grows, and at worst they'll be too cheap to ever get a properly-coded solution and productivity will drop as they're all "waiting to connect." And to make things worse, if a company is using an Access MDB file, you can almost guarantee they're not backing it up regularly.
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I do too, I've read it a dozen times. My copy is so worn and dog-eared, I really need to find another. The description of the bombs hitting New York haunted my nightmares for months.
Or for a more realistic approach, try Warday and the Journey Onwards, by Whitley Strieber. It's excellent, well-researched, and frightening as hell-- it's a tour of the US after a "limited" nuclear exchange with the USSR and journals the effects of it.
(Yes, *that* Whitley Strieber, but it was before he went all wacko and started writing about nothing but UFOs. This book is really good though.)
http://www.amazon.com/Warday-Journey-Onwards-Whitley-Strieber/dp/0340366494/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_8
Amen brother! I never go anywhere without my mutated anthrax... for duck hunting.
SOUTH Koreans? Do you mean North Koreans?
I don't know what government you're under, but there aren't many that have any kind of beef with South Korea. They're pretty upstanding world citizens.
Doesn't work is doesn't work, it doesn't matter *why* it doesn't work. People point that out because they want it to work, not because they want to blame somebody or point fingers.
Great post describing QNX. But you forgot the part where you actually make some kind of point.
What's your point?
Really? Last time I tried Linux, and admittedly this was a few years ago, I couldn't get an external HD working. I figured it was because it was Firewire, not USB, and the Firewire port was actually hitched on to a Creative sound card.
Given this was a couple years ago. But don't knee-jerk and declare it a lie until you know the circumstances-- can you guarantee, *absolutely guarantee*, that all external HDs work?
Unless Windows 7 has changed radically how drivers work under Windows, those usually require user installation on drivers. So, in different words, you're bullshitting.
Depends on what version of Windows you're using as a baseline, but I can say with some certainty: yes it's changed, because you're completely wrong.
I've yet to have to manually install a driver in Vista or Windows 7, and even XP did a pretty damned good job of finding all my drivers a few years ago when I re-installed it. (IIRC, the one it was missing was my USB wifi dongle, everything else it got fine.)
I have a radical idea: maybe you should actually *use* Vista or Windows 7 before slamming it. Just a thought.
Zunes are actually pretty damned good. They don't sell because they were late to the market, and Microsoft isn't "cool," not because the hardware or software is inferior in any way.
Yeah, well, here's another piece of advice for geeks everywhere: You have to cope with the world you're in. To paraphrase Rumsfield, you interact with the world you have, not to the world you want.
You can't make up some simplified, logical, world in your imagination and then cope with that, that doesn't work. Geeks seems to be particularly guilty of this. And when someone doesn't agree with their imaginary world, they declare that person is "stupid". Like my friend who won't accept the term "AJAX" for web programming-- despite it being a useful term to describe something that had no one-word description before, despite millions of people knowing it and thousands of articles and books using it, he thinks everybody who uses it is an idiot.
Ok, I didn't watch all 5 minutes, because that godawful techno music made me want to tear my eyeballs out.
But the only message I got is that when you drag windows around in Compiz, they have massive amounts of ugly tearing-- so much so that it even shows up in a compressed YouTube uploaded video. If my Vista computer looked half that bad, I'd throw it in a dumpster.
You have two concepts confused:
1) What features women say they find attractive in men
2) What features women *actually* find attractive in men
The two are not even remotely close to the same.
I had a manager once I didn't get along with, and our 1-on-1 meetings weren't very pleasant. I actually got up and walked-out on one, when she told me "this isn't an 8 to 4 job, you know". The previous night, I'd actually been up until midnight working on a particularly difficult problem.
But when I thought about it, I was being the ass-- not her. How could she have known I was up until midnight working? I was working from home. I didn't send out any emails saying I was working that late. At that time, our company didn't have timecards, and even if it had this was the next day, long before the timecard would have been submitted.
Anyway, the next day I apologized, and since then I've always managed to find some excuse to send out an email (CCing my management) whenever I'm working extra late, just so they're aware that it's happening. Since then I haven't had any problems.
The moral of the story: don't "brag" brag. Be smart about it. Managers can't judge you based on things they don't know about. This article basically says the same thing. I know we're all geeks and we hate actually talking to people, but the time you spend communicating to your co-workers is golden, slack on whatever else you want, but never hesitate to pop off an email.
Presumably their normal work is making cars *quieter*, since that's what normal people want. (At least, making the interiors quieter.) I'm guessing none of them were hired with the job description: "make car noisier."
I didn't realize Python was so large... 10 MB for the runtime? Ouch.
Either way, my point is that if you want Python supported in the web world, do it the proper front-door method, rather than this goofy language translation stuff. (Obviously, it would need to be implemented a plug-in until all browsers supported it) I still agree with that sentiment, 10 MB or not.
The intrinsic objects are too limited to be useful, so much so that now there are more than 4 different common framework projects to handle all the inconsistency in implementation and they're all incompatible with each other.
Whoa, slow down. Blame where blame is due. That point is DOM's fault, but Javascript's. (Well, ok, DOM's not to blame for the frameworks being incompatible with each other, but the shittiness of DOM is why they exist at all.)
If you implemented Python or Ruby in a browser, it would have the exact same problems with DOM.
That's funny, when I click on last year's file created in Word, it just works. You know, seeing as both Microsoft Office seamlessly installs in Linux with Wine and works just as good (if not better with faster loading times due to superior and quicker file systems) as it does on Windows. Of course, who needs to pay for Office when OpenOffice is free and also opens up those Word documents for me.
That doesn't change the fact that installing Ubuntu will FORMAT THE FUCKING DRIVE. You gigantic douchebag.
Hey, I don't know what a 3 dongle is either, but I can damn sure tell you this: My Novatel USB720 I got from Verizon works like a dream. I just plug it in to a fresh install of Linux and click connect. Within 5 seconds, I'm online. No bullshit drivers or crapware to install. Contrast this with Windows where I have to install said drivers and crapware, start up the craplication to connect with, wait the requisite 30 seconds to a minute for it to connect and then be consistently dropped every hour or so necessitating going through the whole 30 second process again. And since we are trading anecdotes here, I'll indulge you further. My zd1211 USB wifi network adapter just worked. Windows, ha ha, install the driver, use the shitty software and again, get a connection drop every hour or so. Yes, I tried it, yes that is what happened. Ethernet adapter, in Linux, of course it worked. Windows, of course install more crapware.
So when these people hand out the Ubuntu CDs, they're also going to hand out known-compatible hardware to ensure that everything on their system works correctly?
The point of the exercise is that they're handing these CDs to random people on the street, people who could have *any* random assortment of hardware. Sure, we all know that if you have supported hardware, Ubuntu works fine. That's not the point. The point is that there's no way of knowing whether these people have supported hardware or not!
So. You completely missed the point, once again. You gigantic douchebag.
You proprietards are pathetic with your bullshit.
Woot. I'm a proprietard!
Well, that's a point. I still think this whole concept is a little daft, considering that web scripting has been designed to be language-independent from day one. I mean, IE has been the only browser to really embrace it, but still-- no reason other browsers can't.
Jesus Christ, man. It was a joke!
@import sense_of_humor;
And Microsoft removed Clippy like a fucking DECADE ago, get over it already.
[script type="text/python"][/script]. Let one of the major browsers implement it, and see if the others follow... there's probably already DOM-access libraries in Python, yes?
Seems to make a hell of a lot more sense than this translation stuff.
Insert Ubuntu CD, boot, click on Install, answer a few questions and that's it.
Ok, now I just need to open my wedding invitation Word file from last year and-- ALL MY DOCUMENTS ARE GONE!!!!
(Psst: you're missing a huge step here.)
Plug in your 3 mobile broadband USB dongle and you're on the Internet.
What the fuck is a "3 mobile broadband USB dongle?" I certainly don't have one of those. Will Ubuntu work with my laptop's built-in Wifi? Possibly. My desktop's USB wifi? Doubtful. My desktop's built-in network card? Probably. But all of those answers have built-in vagueness.
How many Windows users have to install from scratch anyway ?
Not relevant to the issue at hand.
Amen.
Worry about the quality of the fucking software. If the software is good enough, people will come, and the legal issues will resolve themselves.
I believe that is mostly, if not entirely correct. Obviously, there is a design flaw in security; a user account should never be capable of screwing up system files and system settings. Period.
Name a current Windows exploit that allows a user, with the default "User" permissions, to screw up system files and system settings. Name one.
The current version of Windows is Vista Service Pack 2.
That is speculation, opinion, and FUD. Unix like systems are simply not prone to the types of exploits that Windows has always been wide open to. (ActiveX for example)
Name an ActiveX exploit that works for the current version of Windows and IE with the default settings. (Obviously, if the user goes out of their way to disable security features, all bets are off.)
The current IE version is 8.
It's easy to imagine that malware writers would shift to Linux, but Linux' response would be to write patches after patches, and shut each exploit down as it was exposed.
As opposed to Microsoft's response, which is to... what? Hire belly dancers and throw a 1001 Arabian Nights theme party?
Seriously, WTF is going through your head when you write things like this. I simply can't imagine.
If that were entirely true, then the same exploits would work on Linux. I don't see that - can you provide any citations?
How about you prove your assertions first? You've made two big ones.
Unix like OS's have set the example. Establish trusted repositories for software. TRUSTED repositories, not a bazaar type place where just everyone can put software.
Yes, but you're breaking the rules of the original scenario: you can't turn Windows into an "iPhone App Store" for a half-dozen reasons, not least of which is it would be anti-competitive. Windows doesn't have the luxury of being able to completely shut-out commercial software development like Linux has.
Look into why Excel beat Lotus 1-2-3, or why Word beat WordPerfect sometime. Or, hell, look at Internet Explorer for an extremely well-publicized example. (Briefly: it's easy to dominate the web browser market when your primary opposition continuously ships buggy products, then stops releasing it altogether for a solid 3 years.)
The OS stuff, you're right, they kind of just inherited because they were lucky enough to pick the right hardware to put their OS on. But in other markets, Microsoft succeeded through their own merits. AKA, not fucking up as much as their competition.
Blug. I see your point, and I don't know what the solution is, but it hurts me deeply.
There has to be *some* way to get a SQL Server installation at that client, right? Access without a real DB is just a giant WTF waiting to happen-- at best, you'll have to redevelop it when the company grows, and at worst they'll be too cheap to ever get a properly-coded solution and productivity will drop as they're all "waiting to connect." And to make things worse, if a company is using an Access MDB file, you can almost guarantee they're not backing it up regularly.