But the trips to the soda machines probably relieve your eyestrain and help prevent RSI, thus making you more productive and reducing the risk of a lawsuit.;-)
--
Everyone was calling FL for Gore early... then, suddenly, it turned around (amid rumors of computer problems). The explanation I've heard for this is that the pollsters forgot to take the conservative western part of the state into account. But why would the pollsters make a no-brainer mistake like that?
Some of my friends are suggesting that Daddy Bush called in a favor or two in Florida. This sounds like a ridiculous conspiracy theory, but then, Iran/Contra did too until it proved to be true. And don't forget Bush's role in that!
I'm not saying there was fraud... but I am saying that someone should count those Florida votes *very* *very* carefully in order to make sure there wasn't.
A Zogby poll had about half Nader's voters saying they'd vote for Gore if Nader dropped out, about 1/5 saying they'd vote for Bush, and the remaining 30% or so saying they wouldn't bother voting at all.
However, I think these numbers would be a lot more useful if they were broken down by state.
A conjecture: if a distributed word processor offers compelling features, it will be used. Another conjecture: its users will demand reliability from Microsoft. And perhaps Microsoft would be presented with the choice of providing better reliability somehow, or further alienating their increasingly disillusioned user-base. Either way they chose would be a net win for the world, I reckon.
(On the subject of a distributed word processor, here are my thoughts. If such a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing well. The potential market is huge, obviously. And the requirements are fairly stable, which makes it easier to justify a big investment of developer time. I think that it would take a fair amount of developer time, because distributed apps can be complicated and hard to write and debug.)
(Please be aware that I don't claim that the above is true at all, in fact I'll swear on a stack of function calls that it's all the product of sleep deprivation and sugar overdose.)
Microsoft's innovations are mostly in the realm of
theft and subtler malfeasances, but as some of their research develops further, that may cease to
be true. Take a look at Microsoft's
Research department's home page.
Looks like a lot of marketing fluff, right? But find your way to the list of publications and spend some time browsing and come back here and tell me you're not impressed.
I think that somehow, Microsoft management must have come around to the view that they can't maintain their monopoly forever solely on the basis of dirty tricks. Not that I expect them to stop with the dirty tricks in the foreseeable future, scum that they are. But as far as I can tell, they are trying to build a research organization in the noble mold of Bell Labs or Xerox PARC, which, if successful, could help them to truly "innovate". (They have forever ruined that word for me, I can't say it without quotes.) If I'm right, then the universe is truly a strange and wonderful place. I rather expect that I'm wrong. But Microsoft's research efforts make me wonder if they haven't been looking at the history of IBM and getting ideas.
Think of it this way. IP normally allows you to make certain assumptions, like "one IP, one network interface". That is of course not true in the presence of NAT.
NAT's a cute hack for a thorny problem, but it really plays havoc with the topology of the IP address space, and in the long run I think it's a lousy idea.
And its firewalling is a side effect. People should firewall because they understand the need for firewalls, not because they get it for free when they segment the IP address space.
Let me get this straight. Are you implying that there's some connection between either the AT&T/MediaOne merger or the end of your trial period, and your modem overheating? I'd like to know how you think they'd do that.
Well that's just silly. The desktop file manager is part of "the Solaris environment", all you should be running on your servers is SunOS, which is the OS portion of "the Solaris environment". They're not even the same product, certainly not authored by the same teams.
Have you any evidence that Solaris/x86 is unstable?
I log into a Solaris/x86 box regularly and it seems solid. Sometimes there are performance issues, but they have more to do with the system's lack of administrators than with the OS.
Man, your post is long on wind and short on facts. Now, I'm no Solaris bigot, but in reading Uresh Vahalia's _UNIX Internals_, I couldn't help but be impressed by the ingenuity of Sun's engineers when it comes to building for scalability. Read up on things like the scheduling algorithm, interrupt threads, priority inheritance, and threading in Solaris, and you'll be impressed too -- at least, if you read as well as you talk.
IBM is a huge company. It may be less about how many people are asking and more about getting the request to the right person within the organization. I'm not saying you don't have a valid point, I'm just saying that as a practical matter, this may be a communication/organization problem rather than straight-up hypocrisy.
Are you implying that Cisco doesn't try to control their market? I'd have to disagree. They have a reputation for throwing their weight around, though I admit I don't have any examples ready to hand.
IBM also makes a lot of money on consulting and integration. That's why they can afford to be so platform-agnostic -- they sell you a solution based around whatever technologies you want, you pay them to configure and maintain it, everybody wins.
(This isn't the way most slashdotters probably like to do things, but a lot of companies rely on IBM's expertise so they don't have to develop any in-house.)
From: MSFin@microsoft.com
To: benedict@
Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2000 18:13:59 -0700
Subject: A FINFLASH FROM THE FREEDOM TO INNOVATE NETWORK
Reply-To: MSFin@microsoft.com
X-Mailer: MT Mail ver. 1.22.2
$DEITY on a pogo stick, you GPL fanatics are dumb as dirt.
The GPL-using author says, "I want my software to be free, I want all derivatives to be free, I want to increase the amount of free software in the world."
This is a noble goal, and the GPL serves it well.
The BSDL-using author says, "I want to write a definitive baseline implementation of something -- I want nobody to have any reason to reinvent this particular wheel."
This is a noble goal, and the BSDL serves it well.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, my local telco is facing a class-action lawsuit because their service sucks so bad. So I don't think they're anyone's best bet.
--
But | is a bitwise operator. Since 2b doesn't represent a bitmask, bitwise-or'ing it is nonsensical.
--
Three system calls to read something from /proc:
open()
read()
close()
One system call to read a sysctl:
sysctl()
--
This isn't quite the same thing as Webster.app -- it uses the network instead of consulting a local dictionary. Personally, I like it better.
;-)
OmniDictionary
It still uses command-= though.
--
> But they do NOT insure that a program does what
> it is supposed to, or that it is intuitive in
> the eyes of the user.
So who's saying they do? Just because there is
no silver bullet doesn't mean it doesn't pay to
think about software engineering.
--
But the trips to the soda machines probably relieve your eyestrain and help prevent RSI, thus making you more productive and reducing the risk of a lawsuit. ;-)
--
I think .com is intended for commercial activities, while .biz would be reserved for dubious "internet marketing opportunities", MLM, etc.
;-)
--
Everyone was calling FL for Gore early ... then, suddenly, it turned around (amid rumors of computer problems). The explanation I've heard for this is that the pollsters forgot to take the conservative western part of the state into account. But why would the pollsters make a no-brainer mistake like that?
... but I am saying that someone should count those Florida votes *very* *very* carefully in order to make sure there wasn't.
Some of my friends are suggesting that Daddy Bush called in a favor or two in Florida. This sounds like a ridiculous conspiracy theory, but then, Iran/Contra did too until it proved to be true. And don't forget Bush's role in that!
I'm not saying there was fraud
--
A Zogby poll had about half Nader's voters saying they'd vote for Gore if Nader dropped out, about 1/5 saying they'd vote for Bush, and the remaining 30% or so saying they wouldn't bother voting at all.
However, I think these numbers would be a lot more useful if they were broken down by state.
--
(Please be aware that I don't claim that the above is true at all, in fact I'll swear on a stack of function calls that it's all the product of sleep deprivation and sugar overdose.)
--
Looks like a lot of marketing fluff, right? But find your way to the list of publications and spend some time browsing and come back here and tell me you're not impressed.
I think that somehow, Microsoft management must have come around to the view that they can't maintain their monopoly forever solely on the basis of dirty tricks. Not that I expect them to stop with the dirty tricks in the foreseeable future, scum that they are. But as far as I can tell, they are trying to build a research organization in the noble mold of Bell Labs or Xerox PARC, which, if successful, could help them to truly "innovate". (They have forever ruined that word for me, I can't say it without quotes.) If I'm right, then the universe is truly a strange and wonderful place. I rather expect that I'm wrong. But Microsoft's research efforts make me wonder if they haven't been looking at the history of IBM and getting ideas.
--
Register.com is only good compared to NSI. They spam, and their network is not what I'd call secure.
--
Bah yourself.
Think of it this way. IP normally allows you to make certain assumptions, like "one IP, one network interface". That is of course not true in the presence of NAT.
NAT's a cute hack for a thorny problem, but it really plays havoc with the topology of the IP address space, and in the long run I think it's a lousy idea.
And its firewalling is a side effect. People should firewall because they understand the need for firewalls, not because they get it for free when they segment the IP address space.
--
If by "social programs" you mean welfare, then there's a logical flaw in your argument which should be obvious to anything with a pulse.
If by "social programs" you don't mean welfare, then I'd like to see you back up that number you pulled out of your ass, because I don't believe it.
--
Let me get this straight. Are you implying that there's some connection between either the AT&T/MediaOne merger or the end of your trial period, and your modem overheating? I'd like to know how you think they'd do that.
--
Well that's just silly. The desktop file manager is part of "the Solaris environment", all you should be running on your servers is SunOS, which is the OS portion of "the Solaris environment". They're not even the same product, certainly not authored by the same teams.
--
The way I heard the story, the NSA *strengthened* DES.
--
Have you any evidence that Solaris/x86 is unstable?
I log into a Solaris/x86 box regularly and it seems solid. Sometimes there are performance issues, but they have more to do with the system's lack of administrators than with the OS.
--
Man, your post is long on wind and short on facts. Now, I'm no Solaris bigot, but in reading Uresh Vahalia's _UNIX Internals_, I couldn't help but be impressed by the ingenuity of Sun's engineers when it comes to building for scalability. Read up on things like the scheduling algorithm, interrupt threads, priority inheritance, and threading in Solaris, and you'll be impressed too -- at least, if you read as well as you talk.
--
IBM is a huge company. It may be less about how many people are asking and more about getting the request to the right person within the organization. I'm not saying you don't have a valid point, I'm just saying that as a practical matter, this may be a communication/organization problem rather than straight-up hypocrisy.
--
Are you implying that Cisco doesn't try to control their market? I'd have to disagree. They have a reputation for throwing their weight around, though I admit I don't have any examples ready to hand.
--
IBM also makes a lot of money on consulting and integration. That's why they can afford to be so platform-agnostic -- they sell you a solution based around whatever technologies you want, you pay them to configure and maintain it, everybody wins.
(This isn't the way most slashdotters probably like to do things, but a lot of companies rely on IBM's expertise so they don't have to develop any in-house.)
--
From: MSFin@microsoft.com
To: benedict@
Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2000 18:13:59 -0700
Subject: A FINFLASH FROM THE FREEDOM TO INNOVATE NETWORK
Reply-To: MSFin@microsoft.com
X-Mailer: MT Mail ver. 1.22.2
[-- Attachment #1 --]
[-- Type: text/plain, Encoding: quoted-printable, Size: 3.5K --]
A FINFLASH FROM THE FREEDOM TO INNOVATE NETWORK!
September 26, 2000
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[...]
--
$DEITY on a pogo stick, you GPL fanatics are dumb as dirt.
The GPL-using author says, "I want my software to be free, I want all derivatives to be free, I want to increase the amount of free software in the world."
This is a noble goal, and the GPL serves it well.
The BSDL-using author says, "I want to write a definitive baseline implementation of something -- I want nobody to have any reason to reinvent this particular wheel."
This is a noble goal, and the BSDL serves it well.
--
Wotta troll.
I know of four open-source BSD projects -- FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and the idiosyncratic Darwin.
How many Linux distributions are there?
Paraphrasing Kirk McKusick, BSD has several kernels and one userland, and Linux has one kernel and several userlands.
Each has its advantages.
--