Why would I post as AC? I wasn't the asshole.

This discussion wasn't about switching from Mac/Windows to Linux, but from Ubuntu to Mint. Mint replaced Unity in Ubuntu and passed the time savings to you so you wouldn't have to replace it yourself. You're wrong, and not even making sense now. Why are you still talking?

And even if switching to Linux can't save you time because you can't learn it fast enough to be worth the productivity increases, that's savings that you couldn't collect, even though it was passed to you. Plenty of other people, especially most of the people on Slashdot, show that the weak link is you, not Linux.

You're a jackass and an asshole.

What's the process ID of the nfssvr in this Windows Server 2008 log: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc731909(v=ws.10).aspx

Or this log: http://www.petri.co.il/images/ie7_on_ex2003_1.gif

In Windows XP, I do not see any process ID either:

(The following are all real errors in my event viewer)
Example error #1:
Event Type: Error
Event Source: Application Error
Event Category: (100)
Event ID: 1000
Date: 5/26/2012
Time: 2:35:31 AM
User: N/A
Computer: CORE
Description:
Faulting application , version 0.0.0.0, faulting module unknown, version 0.0.0.0, fault address 0x00000000.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
Data:
0000: 41 70 70 6c 69 63 61 74 Applicat
0008: 69 6f 6e 20 46 61 69 6c ion Fail
0010: 75 72 65 20 20 20 30 2e ure 0.
0018: 30 2e 30 2e 30 20 69 6e 0.0.0 in
0020: 20 75 6e 6b 6e 6f 77 6e unknown
0028: 20 30 2e 30 2e 30 2e 30 0.0.0.0
0030: 20 61 74 20 6f 66 66 73 at offs
0038: 65 74 20 30 30 30 30 30 et 00000
0040: 30 30 30 000

Example #2
Event Type: Error
Event Source: Application Hang
Event Category: (101)
Event ID: 1002
Date: 5/12/2012
Time: 5:32:00 PM
User: N/A
Computer: CORE
Description:
Hanging application explorer.exe, version 6.0.2900.5512, hang module hungapp, version 0.0.0.0, hang address 0x00000000.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
Data: (useless crap omitted to pass Slashdot lameness filter)

Example of Syslog style error:
Apr 28 23:02:02 mitchell postgres[3447]: [7-1] FATAL: the database system is in recovery mode
Apr 28 23:02:02 mitchell postgres[3448]: [6-1] LOG: connection received: host=mitchell.cs.wisc.edu port=37591
Apr 28 23:02:02 mitchell postgres[3448]: [7-1] FATAL: the database system is in recovery mode
Apr 28 23:02:23 mitchell postgres[461]: [6-1] LOG: startup process (PID 3446) was terminated by signal 7: Bus error
Apr 28 23:02:23 mitchell postgres[461]: [7-1] LOG: aborting startup due to startup process failure

Much better in comparison. So what if it's not in XML, it is a lot more useful than most of the crap that gets puked out in event viewer.

As for the "object reference" errors, in other systems/programming languages you get way more useful error messages like:

(Python example)
Traceback (most recent call last):
    File "testerror.py", line 12, in [module]
        test(myvar)
    File "testerror.py", line 5, in test
        print 2 + var
TypeError: unsupported operand type(s) for +: 'int' and 'NoneType'

var is clearly the problem here.

In contrast I see my colleagues working till late at night wrestling with "Object reference not set to an instance of an object.", and it's not always their code they're having to fix. Maybe there's a way of turning on debugging symbols so that message is replaced with something a lot more useful, but so far they seem to get the same useless error message even with debugging on.

FWIW I do write windows programs/services that log more informative "syslog style" error messages (with process AND thread ID- makes debugging multithreaded stuff easier), but Microsoft's own stuff doesn't do it. Stuff that would be simple to do in a unix/linux system would be hard on Windows - for example if there is a problem with an email message amongst a bunch of Microsoft Exchange servers, figuring out the path it took and where the message had problems, and why is so much more difficult than with postfix, qmail etc.

Similarly for IIS vs Apache. With IIS if something goes wrong say with a web.config file, so that you can't really start up the actual app (till it can log useful errors), all you get is an error code. IIS says something is wrong, but it doesn't tell you much. It's basically trial and error to figure out what happened With Apache, it usually tells you why it had problems trying to run the web app - no permissions, or whatever.

Sometimes it seems to me that Microsoft's stuff was designed by some smart people, but the coding was outsourced to India or wherever. So the outsource coders will write in logging (and other features) as defined in the requirements in the easiest/cheapest way, which often turns out to be almost useless. But they don't care - they are not ever going to use what they write!

Whenever I see C++, I cringe. Is there something equivalent to Visual Studio that actually does garbage collection for you and doesn't have a disgustingly horrible syntax which was a complete hack to maintain backwards-compatibility with C? I can think of Java or C#/Mono with Eclipse, which isn't TOO bad I guess. But seriously, fuck C++.

This story about the woes of Bitcoinica is grossly overblown. The amount of money is comparatively very small, and the Bitcoin network itself is nothing to do with this theft and is sound.

To put some perspective on the Bitcoinica incidents, in 2008, the estimated UK bank fraud level was £52.5 million; that is 990.28441 times the amount of this Bitcoin theft:

http://www.themoneystop.co.uk/042009/online-banking-fraud-is-on-the-rise-in-the-uk.html

There are people on many sides who want Bitcoin to fail, and who will do anything to stop it from growing. The banks hate it, because it will disintermediate and replace their business. The Statists dont like it because it will defund their socialist dreams. The gold bugs loathe it because it is not gold. Keynesian journalists bristle at the fact that the money supply in Bitcoin is limited, and dream of seeing it destroyed.

None of these people will matter in the end, and they do not understand Bitcoin.

Bitcoin will continue to grow, and events like this will winnow out the weak services and strengthen the existing ones. Each theft, disaster and problem are iterations that add to the unpublished "how to run a safe Bitcoin service" manual. Bitcoin and the services that will grow up around it cannot be stopped, just like Bittorrent cannot be stopped, and the latter is responsible for 53.3% of upstream traffic:

http://torrentfreak.com/bittorrent-still-dominates-global-internet-traffic-101026/

It doesn't take much to see how important Bitcoin is going to become once the core public facing interfaces are solidified, refined and reliable. Bitcoinica is not Bitcoin, and neither are any of the services that are built on it. Bitcoin is a protocol. Events like this are nothing more than a bump in the road, and a vanishingly small one at that.

they slice it to molecular thickness and fry it in cheap crappy oil

Shows how much you know. Bacon doesn't need oil, it's got its own fat.

-jcr

If you don't boil bacon, how can you make bacon soup?

-jcr

Why clear land? Just get yourself a vertical hydro system made, indoors. Like this one at the UK research facility where I conduct LED-illuminated crop testing - http://tinypic.com/player.php?v=2r5gleg&s=7

Save your back and fuel costs.

It's not all nefarious. Windows is actually fairly secure, and the combination of Windows AD server, Exchange, and Windows desktop provides a pretty decent and simple solution for businesses of various sizes.

Aside from being a pretty good solution, the larger issue is that Windows still has better commercial application support, and to some extent better hardwares support. Adobe CS doesn't run on Linux, and if I buy a new webcam from Best Buy, Windows is officially supported, and Linux may not be.