Slashback: Cooperation, Gravity, Petite

gravity r0xors by floamy · 2003-02-10 12:01 · Score: -1, Troll

IM VERY SMART!!!!!! I TAKE TITLE FROM STORY AND PUT IT IN MY COMMENT FP! caps caps caps capscaps caps caps capscaps caps caps capscaps caps caps capscaps caps caps capscaps caps caps capscaps caps caps capscaps caps caps capscaps caps caps capscaps caps caps capscaps caps caps capscaps caps caps capscaps caps caps capscaps caps caps caps

first post... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 12:01 · Score: -1, Troll

...or are comments just not showing up again?

which post? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 12:01 · Score: -1, Troll

1st? 2nd? none of the above? i tried.

good stuff by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 12:02 · Score: -1, Offtopic

It's always good to read one of these slashbacks, let's me catch up on what I might have missed. ~jm

Re:good stuff by afidel · 2003-02-10 13:50 · Score: 1

Iron foundries are nothing. My dad once had to spec a pc to record measurements from some analytical equipment in a pickling house. The PH of the air in that place was incredibly high. In fact it was so high that the network connection failed because the environment box wasn't sealed properly when the A/D connectors were replaced one time, the air got in and corroded the contacts between the RG-45 cable and the network card!

--
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.

Not The First Post! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 12:02 · Score: -1, Troll

click

FTP by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 12:02 · Score: -1, Troll

FIRST POST FIRST POST

If they can drop automobiles? by $$$$$exyGal · 2003-02-10 12:05 · Score: 5, Funny

Why can't scientists drop bowling balls ?

--naked

--
Very popular slashdot journal for adul

Re:If they can drop automobiles? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 12:18 · Score: 4, Funny

Or Anvils *Loony Tunes Theme*
Re:If they can drop automobiles? by WatertonMan · 2003-02-10 12:21 · Score: 5, Interesting

Funny. A few friends of mine dropped some bowling balls off a rather tall building on campus when it was discovered that the doors to the roof were left unlocked. It bounced rather high several times. (They did have someone below checking to make sure no pedestrians were around).
An other friend bought some bowling balls at a thrift store back in High School. They rolled it down the street to hit a curb where it would fly high up in the air - much to their amusement. They did this about 6 times until it smashed through the curb, flew off into the air and went through someones roof. Fortunately no one was home. But it taught them why dropping things isn't always a good idea.
I've been hiking in the backcountry where some stupid mfer was rolling boulders down a mountain thinking no one was around. Unless you know exactly where you are dropping things and have scoped things out, dropping things from a plane isn't too smart. (IMO)
BTW - there was an old B-movie staring Charlie Sheen where they do a cool stunt. Someone is locked in the trunk of a car and dropped out of a cargo plane. The stunt man dives after it, gets the keys out of the ignition, slides to the back, unlocks the trunk, gets the person out, clips them into their chute and then they tangent open together. Horrible movie but very cool stunt. Too bad today it would be handled via CGI. It seems like real stunts are becoming a thing of the past.
Re:If they can drop automobiles? by FFFish · 2003-02-10 12:32 · Score: 4, Funny

I've been hiking in the backcountry where some stupid mfer was rolling boulders down a mountain thinking no one was around.

Oh, shit, I'm sorry, man. I've always worried about that. A little. After it's too late.

--

--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
Re:If they can drop automobiles? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 12:33 · Score: 0

if you saw Sheen, then it was probably on a sound stage
Re:If they can drop automobiles? by daveq · 2003-02-10 12:37 · Score: 3, Informative

In case you care, the movie was Terminal Velocity.
Re:If they can drop automobiles? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 12:45 · Score: 0

A few friends of mine dropped some bowling balls off a rather tall building on campus when it was discovered that the doors to the roof were left unlocked.
How.. quaint. I always find it interesting to see what common rabble like yourself do for 'kicks'. Dropping bowling balls. How crude is that? The standard of living has escalated tremendously for working 'class' folk (how they could sully the true meaning of class with such an adjective I'm not sure), and you have been given the opportunity to enjoy the finer aspects of life, yet you still continue to take pride in your neanderthal exploits. Reading this 'forum' has obliterated any doubt from my mind that we, the last of the blue bloods, are actually superior to our less wealthy counterparts. The more things change, the more things stay the same. Enjoy your life of ignorance!
-- H.G. Pennypacker, wealthy american industrialist, of 'old money', and one of the last true aristocrats
Re:If they can drop automobiles? by Wonko42 · 2003-02-10 12:51 · Score: 1

Legend has it (i.e., I wasn't there, but this is what I've been told) that some friends of mine (who shall remain nameless, for obvious reasons) once took a bowling ball up to the top of a local residential road that travels down a long, steep hill for about a mile or two. At the very bottom, it intersects with a major four lane road.
The aforementioned friends aimed the ball very carefully right down the center line of the road, then gave it a gentle nudge down the hill, hopped in their car and sped off like maniacs. Since nobody stuck around to see what happened, and since there was nothing in the local news the next morning, we can't be certain, but if that ball stayed on course, it very well could have reached speeds in excess of 100 miles per hour by the time it reached the busy intersection at the bottom of the hill. If a car had been in the way, it would have been hit by the equivalent of a lightweight cannonball. But of course, since the news didn't mention anything, we have to assume nobody got hurt...
My friends aren't the smartest people.
Re:If they can drop automobiles? by meringuoid · 2003-02-10 12:55 · Score: 2, Funny

Unless you know exactly where you are dropping things and have scoped things out, dropping things from a plane isn't too smart.
United States Air Force, are you listening?

--
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Re:If they can drop automobiles? by PD · 2003-02-10 13:13 · Score: 1

About 10 years ago in Detroit some morons dropped a bowling ball off a highway overpass and it went through a windshield of a car and killed a woman who was a passenger. Now every bridge in Detroit has large fences to prevent anything from being dropped off the side.

--
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
Re:If they can drop automobiles? by yellowstone · 2003-02-10 13:13 · Score: 3, Informative
bowling ball up to the top of a local residential road that travels down a long, steep hill for about a mile or two
Assuming for the moment that one were to actually try this, the bowling ball would almost certainly find its way into one ditch or the other in fairly short order, because
1. Roads are very uneven, and full of random crud which would tend to deflect the bowling ball from a straight course, and
2. Roads are typically designed to be convex (high in the middle, low on the sides) so that rain drains off. Even if the ball wasn't deflected by debris, it would tend to roll to the side anyway.
Even if you don't have those problems to deal with, imagine how hard it would be to avoid rolling a gutter ball on a bowling alley 2 miles long.
The reason there was nothing in the paper is that the ball is in the ditch, probably a few hundred feet from where they started it.
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150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for slashdot.sig (129323052 bytes).
Re:If they can drop automobiles? by hitzroth · 2003-02-10 13:16 · Score: 1

Unless you know exactly where you are dropping things and have scoped things out, dropping things from a plane isn't too smart.

United States Air Force, are you listening?

I'm pretty sure that he was referring to people dropping things when they don't intend to kill people.

Besides, the USAF does a pretty good job of hitting appropriate targets accurately and precisely.

--
In mathematics, one does not understand things, one merely gets used to them.
--VonNeumann
Re:If they can drop automobiles? by lordsid · 2003-02-10 13:22 · Score: 1

i think dropping an avil would make for nice pictures. maybe get a wiley coyote to jump with you...

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IMAGE VERIFICATION IS EVIL!
Re:If they can drop automobiles? by stefanlasiewski · 2003-02-10 13:25 · Score: 2, Funny

They rolled it down the street to hit a curb where it would fly high up in the air - much to their amusement. They did this about 6 times until it smashed through the curb, flew off into the air and went through someones roof.

I've been hiking in the backcountry where some stupid mfer was rolling boulders down a mountain thinking no one was around.

No, I knew you were down there.

After all, I have been stalking you since you ... I mean, your "friend" smashed a bowling ball into my car!!!

I mean, who do you think you are? Bowling Girl???

--
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
Re:If they can drop automobiles? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 13:30 · Score: 0

Besides, the USAF does a pretty good job of hitting appropriate targets accurately and precisely.

I suspect the post you reply to was referring to the recent incident where some USAF yahoos bombed their Canadian allies.
Re:If they can drop automobiles? by krogoth · 2003-02-10 13:34 · Score: 1

BTW - there was an old B-movie staring Charlie Sheen where they do a cool stunt. Someone is locked in the trunk of a car and dropped out of a cargo plane. The stunt man dives after it, gets the keys out of the ignition, slides to the back, unlocks the trunk, gets the person out, clips them into their chute and then they tangent open together. Horrible movie but very cool stunt. Too bad today it would be handled via CGI. It seems like real stunts are becoming a thing of the past.

Cory Doctorow's book mentions an interesting idea - "We don't have to beat them, we just have to outlive them". I think CGI animators are outliving real stunt actors.

--

They that quote Benjamin Franklin on liberty and safety deserve neither.
Re:If they can drop automobiles? by transient · 2003-02-10 13:54 · Score: 2, Funny

Unless you know exactly where you are dropping things and have scoped things out, dropping things from a plane isn't too smart.
Not just dumb, but illegal. Unless you have made every effort to ensure that no people will be hurt, and no property will be damaged (other than your own, I suppose), you're in violation of FAA regs.
Of course, if you know everything's safe (relatively), then you are legally allowed to drop stuff out of planes! I have to admit I've been tempted to launch squadrons of plastic army men with little parachutes from a Cessna.

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irb(main):001:0>
Re:If they can drop automobiles? by child_of_mercy · 2003-02-10 14:02 · Score: 3, Funny

except for when their allies are in the region of course.

WWII Saying:

"When the Germans bomb, the british duck,
when the British bomb, the germans duck,
when the Americans bomb, everyone ducks."

--
'There is a Light that never goes out.'
Re:If they can drop automobiles? by istartedi · 2003-02-10 14:02 · Score: 1

This makes me wonder how high you would bounce.

--
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Re:If they can drop automobiles? by tzanger · 2003-02-10 14:27 · Score: 1

About 10 years ago in Detroit some morons dropped a bowling ball off a highway overpass and it went through a windshield of a car and killed a woman who was a passenger.

yes, there have been several incidents of that around north america.... one I recall ended up severely injuring a 10-year old boy who is now badly mentally retarded. IMO that's worse than death... The kid's father was driving, I couldn't imagine that if it happened to my son(s or daughter).
Re:If they can drop automobiles? by Maxwell'sSilverLART · 2003-02-10 14:30 · Score: 1

I'll field that one. Perhaps the "appropriate target" bit was wrong, but the pilots certainly hit the targets they had selected. Poor judgment in target selection? Yes. Inaccuracy? 9 out of 10 Canadians say no.

--
Moderate drunk! It's more fun that way!
Re:If they can drop automobiles? by tzanger · 2003-02-10 14:31 · Score: 2, Insightful

Besides, the USAF does a pretty good job of hitting appropriate targets accurately and precisely.

<cough>
Re:If they can drop automobiles? by topham · 2003-02-10 14:35 · Score: 1

yeah, whats a few Canadians between friends...
Re:If they can drop automobiles? by WatertonMan · 2003-02-10 14:41 · Score: 1

They were very accurate. They just had very poor targeting wisdom. But they were aiming at the Canadian troops, unfortunately.
Re:If they can drop automobiles? by charon_on_acheron · 2003-02-10 14:43 · Score: 1

About 10 feet. "Faces of Death"

"He bounced. Once."

Great line of tapes, if you can stomach them.
They also show why you shouldn't feed the bears.
And especially shouldn't film your wife feeding the bears.
"Honey, we're out of bread."
Re:If they can drop automobiles? by eXtro · 2003-02-10 14:51 · Score: 1

Well, that or a strip club or brothel.

--
Chris Kuivenhoven is a thief, beware
Re:If they can drop automobiles? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 14:56 · Score: 0

Roads in southern California (San Diego, at least) have very little crown built into them, which is part of why traffic is about as bad there when it rains as when it snows in Seattle (which has no snow removal equipment, and 2 million fng idiots when it comes to driving in the snow).
Re:If they can drop automobiles? by charon_on_acheron · 2003-02-10 14:58 · Score: 1

Actually, the second line could be:
when the british bomb, the french duck

The two groups never did like each other.
Re:If they can drop automobiles? by guacamolefoo · 2003-02-10 15:16 · Score: 1

Bowling balls occasionally were rolled down the Hill at Lehigh when I was there. I have no idea who was responsible for such an action, but those seen chasing the bowling balls to observe the action were known to be harassed by the gendarmes.

GF.

--
Lots of petrified grits
Re:If they can drop automobiles? by EugeneK · 2003-02-10 15:17 · Score: 1

though accidents will happen
Re:If they can drop automobiles? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 16:20 · Score: 0

Yeah but who would you rather fuck, a french babe or an english babe? Lets just assume that they are twins who were raised in seperate countries, also assume that the french chick can speak and understand english (but she has a french accent).

That would be a truly difficult choice.
Re:If they can drop automobiles? by snilloc · 2003-02-10 17:22 · Score: 1

Some friends of mine and I had an ongoing semi-serious plan to stop dropping bombs in Iraq (this was approx 1998) and start dropping junked cars. I mean, we have a shitload of junked cars in the US - Why not get rid of them in such a way as to do some damage. Ya can't drop one of those things from fiddy-thousand feet and have it not screw a few things up.
The bigger thing was the psychological aspect...
"HOLY SHIT - They're dropping Buicks!"
Re:If they can drop automobiles? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 18:49 · Score: 0

About two and a half Americans at the current exchange rate.
Re:If they can drop automobiles? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-11 00:14 · Score: 0

Oh. I thought you mean they hit something important.
Re:If they can drop automobiles? by Chiggy_Von_Richtoffe · 2003-02-11 01:14 · Score: 2, Interesting

Pffft!!
automobiles, shmautomobiles, real boffins dropp watermellons!
Re:If they can drop automobiles? by connatic · 2003-02-11 02:20 · Score: 1

Terminal Velocity is the Charlie Sheen movie.
Re:If they can drop automobiles? by milobloom-ab · 2003-02-11 03:50 · Score: 1

Why, the scientists at Simmons have been doing it for years!
Re:If they can drop automobiles? by clubin · 2003-02-11 05:27 · Score: 1

If they can drop automobiles possibly over people they don't even know, why can't we drop bombs on people that rub us the wrong way?
Re:If they can drop automobiles? by charon_on_acheron · 2003-02-11 06:01 · Score: 1

Well, does the French chick shave her armpits and legs?
Re:If they can drop automobiles? by bryan1945 · 2003-02-11 10:54 · Score: 1

Interesting- most bombs are 500 to 2000 lbs, usually. Around the same as a crushed car, right? Use crushed cars, and use a C-130 (that's the big transport plane, right?) and you could drop around 70k lbs of (non-explosive) materials. I think B-52s are limited to around 50k lbs (probably wrong, don't crawl up my ass about the number). So if you only drop kinetic bombs, you got nearly a 50% increase! Incorporate some kind of high explosive, and viola! bombs froms wrecks!

Of course, you lose the "dropping Buicks!" angle, but you do get (without the high explosive additives) "HOLY SHIT- They're dropping blocks of... what the fuck is that!"

--
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
Re:If they can drop automobiles? by SkunkPussy · 2003-02-12 04:11 · Score: 1

Besides, the USAF does a pretty good job of hitting appropriate targets accurately and precisely.

No they don't.
don't believe the hype

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SURELY NOT!!!!!

Its good to see kooperation. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 12:07 · Score: 4, Interesting

As an end user, who uses kde, and gtk apps, compatibllity is key. The kde team should write a wrapper for gtk to use kde widgets for gtk apps, so they look and feel the same.

Geramik helps, but it would be kool to use the kde file dialog instead of the (yuck) gtk one.

Re:Its good to see kooperation. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 12:11 · Score: 0

...and kprinter while they're at it.

And someone in the KDE camp needs to give up the Konqueror ghost and help out those poor folks trying to port Mozilla to Qt.

If all of those things happen, the Linux desktop(s) will be a wonderful thing indeed.
Re:Its good to see kooperation. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 12:33 · Score: 1, Interesting

Those people who work on Konq just got more users than Mozilla might ever get when Apple picked KHTML over Safari. Why in the hell would they "give up the ghost" and go work on a Mozilla? Right now Konq and KHTML have a lot brighter future than Mozilla does.

I personally use Mozilla or Phoenix on all my machines, but I'm also smart enough to realize the Mozilla project isn't doing to well these days. AOL laid off a bunch of staff last fall and 95% of users think Mozilla too slow and bloated(I stopped arguing with that fact). To make things worse, AOL has not pimped Netscape in the least. Netscape was always supposed to be the browser "for end users" and Mozilla was supposed to be "about technology". Well it sure as shit hasn't turned out that way.

Where are all the OEM contracts? Why is Netscape or even Mozilla(who has no PR/marketing department) not shipping with any PC's?

Mozilla isn't going anywhere. I still like and use it, but the fact remains AOL is a breath away from axing the project. Being that around 60% of the work on Mozilla is currently done by AOL employees this would be a big blow. Mozilla would still survive due to the fact its opensource, but the chance it ever(I'm not sure it even will) breaking into double digit market share will be gone.
Re:Its good to see kooperation. by Trestop · 2003-02-10 12:33 · Score: 1

Give up konqueror, after all the support they got from Apple ? They would be really dumb to do that.
Re:Its good to see kooperation. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 12:43 · Score: 0

Why Ko KDE Kusers insist Kn using Khe letter K as Khe first Ketter of Kvery Word?
Re:Its good to see kooperation. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 12:46 · Score: 0

It's knot the KDE kusers. It's the KDE kdevelopers. And it kannoys kus just as much as it kannoys you. But the software is kreat, so we ksuffer with the kstupid names!
Re:Its good to see kooperation. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 12:51 · Score: 0

I don't mean to dis the great work Apple did on improving KHTML, but they did take a project that was lagging behind Gecko and bring it leaps and bounds ahead, so that it was still lagging behind Gecko, but not by as much.

I'd love to show my gratitude to Apple, but I wish I could so it in another way than sticking with inferior software.

Yes, yes, choice is good. Difference is good. But putting the #2 Linux browser engine in the #1 Linux desktop just seems to be fighting against reality.
Re:Its good to see kooperation. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 13:04 · Score: 0

It would be even nicer to have gtk wrappers for qt, so I don't have to subject my eyes to those fugly, misplaced gradients and goofy lines. Maybe take some of the button bloat and random stupid options away too. I really can't understand why a kde-user would prefer qt to gtk. I know it's a matter of taste and all, but even with "good" themes I can't use kde because I find it even uglier than cde (widgets, icons, general layout). It hurts my eyes. kde does have many nice apps, but I always go back to using similar (even if slightly inferior in some cases, athough not many) gtk apps so that I don't drive myself insane.
Re:Its good to see kooperation. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 16:52 · Score: 0

Game Greason GNOME Gevelopers Guse the Getter G Gas the Girst Getter Gof Gvery Gword.
Re:Its good to see kooperation. by La+Temperanza · 2003-02-10 16:55 · Score: 1

How about a universal wrapper that can translate to and from both versions of GTK+, Qt and Open Motif?

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--
est modus in rebus

Dedicated Servers by jpsowin · 2003-02-10 12:08 · Score: 4, Interesting

Those "little pc's" would be great for a bunch of dedicated servers in a compact space... I wonder if one could remove the CD drive and put a notebook HD in? That would be perfect...

Re:Dedicated Servers by WIAKywbfatw · 2003-02-10 12:13 · Score: 1, Funny

Those "little pc's" would be great for a bunch of dedicated servers in a compact space...

Hey, you don't mean a Beowulf cluster do you?

Nah, you can't mean that. Not on /....

--

"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg

KDE and GNOME, combined documents?? by Cokelee · 2003-02-10 12:08 · Score: 4, Insightful

WTF, IMHO a common HIG would be great. Geez, talk about getting my hopes up.

Same document, different sections. Why the same document, compare and contrast???
What is wrong with a streamlined HIG- why is it seen as a bad thing to ANYBODY?
The approach doesn't have to be exactly the same, just the ideology behind the approach, that's what matters - SOME consistency.

Re:KDE and GNOME, combined documents?? by bstadil · 2003-02-10 12:22 · Score: 5, Funny

WTF, IMHO a common HIG would be great Fewer acronyms would be a good start.

--
Help fight continental drift.
Re:KDE and GNOME, combined documents?? by mmol_6453 · 2003-02-10 12:32 · Score: 5, Interesting

why is it seen as a bad thing to ANYBODY?

Grudges. KDE is based on Qt, which wasn't Software Libre when the first version of KDE was released. (Which is why GNOME was started.)

Also, as an example, I came in on the scene only five years ago, after Trolltech made Qt GPL. Oddly enough, I'm still annoyed at theKompany, because I installed Kivio on my laptop so I could build circuit diagrams on my laptop. Come to find out, I have to buy the electronic schematics before I can use them in Kivio. Granted, they have the right to charge for extraneous material(which these extra stencils are), but I find, as a (P)oor (C)ollege (S)tudent, that free as in Beer is really, really advantageous. So I'm annoyed. I was really looking forward to built-in Python scripting, and, IMO, Dia needs work before I can use it with much comfort.

For the complete set of electronics symbols, at an average of $6 per stencil set, I'd probably be paying out $60 this week. And if I wanted any other users on my laptop to be able to use those stencils, it's another $60 per person.

And, as a final answer to your question, I gaurantee you I'll get at least one down-mod for badmouthing either GNOME or KDE office components. (Though I might not get modded at all as this is a rather old article now.)

--
What's this Submit thingy do?
Re:KDE and GNOME, combined documents?? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 12:42 · Score: 0

A common HIG would be disastrous.

Let's say Gnome decides to go with KDE's left-to-right button order. Thousands of pissed Apple users, Gnome users grumbling about the dictatorship of inferior interfaces and forking the code, etc.

Let's say KDE decides to go with Gnome's right-to-left button order. Now we get a KDE code fork from people who can't adjust to bass-ackwards interface decisions.

Damn, well, I tried to seem neutral there for a while. Well the point is that choice is good and people should be free to fuck up their interfaces, and choice means people will be able to have a non-fucked-up interface if they want to.
Re:KDE and GNOME, combined documents?? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 12:52 · Score: 2, Funny

You're crazy!!

Let me tell you about our project. We strongly believe that Okay buttons should be blue, with 5 pixels of padding between them and the window border.

I understand there are some misguided people in this world who tolerate and even support white Okay buttons and.. it hurts to say it.. 3 pixels of padding.

Now, you know, and I know, these people are MORONS who deserve nothing less than FLAMING HOT DEATH, but still, they get together in their little "cliques" and plot new ways they can sneak their white 3-pixel agendas into the mainstream.

I want no part of it.

That's why it's best if we simply write our own documents, and not contaminate them with the festering ideas of these addle-brained mouth-breathers. If they are smart, they will simply drop their inferior competing project, which serves no purpose and crashes often, and join ours, with its blue 5-pixel perfection.

The choice is clear.
Re:KDE and GNOME, combined documents?? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 14:19 · Score: 0

They will combine where things are similar and try to work twords similar guidlines but where the disagree, they disagree
Re:KDE and GNOME, combined documents?? by tzanger · 2003-02-10 14:40 · Score: 1

because I installed Kivio [thekompany.com] on my laptop so I could build circuit diagrams on my laptop.

Why not use a proper schematic entry program? Hell it's even free and will do autorouting for 2 planes and a restricted (but generous) board size for that price.
Re:KDE and GNOME, combined documents?? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 15:27 · Score: 0

oh, and on a note related to theKompany: don't for the love of god flush any money down the shitter on DataArchitect if you can avoid it. I was hoping to get a modern, cross-platform program to do ERDs against open source databases, what I got was a dysfunctional POS. No feeling like shelling out fourty bucks to be a fuckin' beta tester. :-(
Re:KDE and GNOME, combined documents?? by twener · 2003-02-10 21:31 · Score: 1

I read that Kivio/KOffice has a Dia stencil importer. Doesn't it work?
Re:KDE and GNOME, combined documents?? by mmol_6453 · 2003-02-11 02:46 · Score: 1

Didn't know that. Hope someone mods you Informative. I'll try it. Thanks.

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What's this Submit thingy do?
Re:KDE and GNOME, combined documents?? by mmol_6453 · 2003-02-11 02:49 · Score: 1

I'll have to try it. Would it fare well on my P166 laptop?

--
What's this Submit thingy do?

Who the fuck cares about Kevin Mitnick? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 12:12 · Score: -1, Troll

Mitnick: you're a goddamned criminal. Rot in hell.

Re:Who the fuck cares about Kevin Mitnick? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 12:27 · Score: 4, Funny

"Mitnick: you're a goddamned criminal. Rot in hell."
Michael:
Please stop posting all this negative shit anonymously. If you've got a problem then let's meet and talk. Perhaps at 9:00 tonight at Vino's? You've got plenty of gas in your tank, and your Outlook says your free so I'll pencil you in. Please wear something else 'though, that red sweater you've got on makes you look like a tomato.
-me

How to solve America's problems in the middle east by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 12:12 · Score: -1, Troll

It's rather simple. Nuke Israel!

Why KDE or GNOME anyway? by Khalidz0r · 2003-02-10 12:13 · Score: -1, Troll

Well, the power of linux is in its command line, I believe there should all the work go. I feel linux is going in a totally wrong direction.

--
"What you 'seek' is what you get!"

Re:Why KDE or GNOME anyway? by ddimas · 2003-02-10 12:20 · Score: 0, Redundant

Well, the power of linux is in its command line, I believe there should all the work go. I feel linux is going in a totally wrong direction.
Re:Why KDE or GNOME anyway? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 12:24 · Score: 0

I agree. Both totally suck. I'm an admitted Windows weenie and decided to take another plunge into Linux recently (Gentoo distro). I've installed Slackware way back in the day growing up when I actually had time to mess around. I've also installed it on a wearable computer I built so I'm not a total Windows moron. Anyway, the first few days I was in awe at the beauty of KDE 3.1. It sure freaking looked good. Within a couple of days I immediately ran into issues with KDEs browser. Boy what a piece of crap. It is a memory hog like you wouldn't imagine although I have to admit it rendered pages rather fast and the fonts in KDE look amazing. I unchecked the "cache" option and since then was never able to run Konqueror again. Oh well, I ended up installing Netscape but it constantly crashed when I went tried to go to www.line6.com. I was about to install yet another freaking browser but fell back to Lynx. Yum, this was really fun. The quality of the stuff out there is weak. The only two graphically based open-source packages that impress me are Eclipse and OpenOffice, both of which orginally came from the corporate world. So, anyway, to make a long story short, I agree with the poster saying that Linux should stick with its super powerful command line interface. It is unquestionably amazing. Welcome to the 80s.
Re:Why KDE or GNOME anyway? by WIAKywbfatw · 2003-02-10 12:25 · Score: 5, Insightful

If you think that Linux doesn't need a stable WIMP interface and desktop environment and that a CLI will suffice for all Linux users then you are sadly mistaken.

A CLI and a CLI alone might be fine for you but it won't work for 99 percent of Linux users. How do you expect to browse the web in Mozilla, edit a picture in Gimp, type and format a letter in OpenOffice or play a game with a CLI alone?

At a time when the Linux community is pushing open source software as a viable alternative to Microsoft-dominated solutions how will forcing every new adopter to learn a non-intuitive set of commands help promote Linux as the way forward?

I'm sorry if you see both GNOME and KDE as a waste of time. Please accept the fact that the overwhelming majority don't and that the future growth of the Linux community is dependent on an easy-to-use desktop that delivers as much as (if not more than) Windows does.

--

"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Re:Why KDE or GNOME anyway? by ddimas · 2003-02-10 12:26 · Score: 2, Insightful

Actually the command line and the GUI both have their uses. After all, you don't use a hammer to drive a screw do you?
Well, the power of linux is in its command line, I believe there should all the work go. I feel linux is going in a totally wrong direction.
Re:Why KDE or GNOME anyway? by sxltrex · 2003-02-10 12:27 · Score: 1

Don't feed the trolls.
Re:Why KDE or GNOME anyway? by Khalidz0r · 2003-02-10 12:43 · Score: 1

I don't modify my hammer to work as a screw though (and lose both functionas at the end), do I?

--
"What you 'seek' is what you get!"
Re:Why KDE or GNOME anyway? by On+Lawn · 2003-02-10 13:07 · Score: 1

I don't know about the others, but as far as browsing, Links2 does an awfully good job.

---------------------
: It gets you there and back again.
Re:Why KDE or GNOME anyway? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 14:22 · Score: 0

links2,ascii art using emacs, latex by way of emacs, bsdgames.
Re:Why KDE or GNOME anyway? by moncyb · 2003-02-10 16:33 · Score: 1

I do think a GUI is a good thing, but GNOME and KDE are not.
How do you expect to browse the web in Mozilla, edit a picture in Gimp, type and format a letter in OpenOffice or play a game with a CLI alone?

None of those things require KDE or GNOME--well I don't know about Open Office for sure because I never tried it, but I didn't find any references to either on their site. I run Phoenix, Mozilla, Lyx, GIMP, Unreal Tournament, xfig, and many other programs just fine without KDE or GNOME installed. Slackware compiled some GNOME dependancies into the GIMP, but I just went to gimp.org and found some nice non-GNOME binaries there. ;-)
I'm sorry if you see both GNOME and KDE as a waste of time.

They are not only a waste of time, but they are the bane of the community. They are hideous bloated clones of the horrid UI and "OS" called Win98. I hate Win98 with a passion. Do you even know why M$ created Win98? To try and circumvent any ruling by the DoJ where they would have to distribute IE separately from Windows and to argue those systems were tightly integrated. That is why they merged IE into the desktop. It wasn't to make the product better or "easier to use". On the contrast--it makes the thing much worse and more contrived.
I recently decided to give KDE another shot. What a mistake! KDE and their programs require the stupid "DCOP" server which needs thirty seconds just to even load the smallest program. The non-KDE non-GNOME gv loads almost instantly, kghostview takes it's own sweet time to load. So does khexedit! A friggin hex editor! The display even lags behind the scrollbar just like in Winders! I don't want to run the KDE window manager or the crappy KDE desktop. I like fvwm2. And kword sucks just as bad as MS Word.
I don't get why people praise KDE / GNOME so much. We don't need such monolithic systems to use a GUI. Most of the problems with X would be solved with individual systems (mostly just libraries) where a standard API is established, and they don't need to be bound to a specific framework like KDE or GNOME. Libpng works fine by itself. GTK works fine by itself. FLTK works fine by itself. Most window managers work fine by themselves. They are all separate components that don't require a whole bunch of excess baggage.
Re:Why KDE or GNOME anyway? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-11 03:32 · Score: 0

or play a game with a CLI alone?

You've got the best game in a CLI!
Re:Why KDE or GNOME anyway? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-11 20:36 · Score: 0

lol, sometimes it is funny to see how people consider personal opinion as troll simply because it is against the `popular trend` through geeks.

Cannot you simply THINK before you moderate the comment? If the same thing was said about a Microsoft product it'd have been an `insightful` comment!!
Slashdot.org should be a fair community where all opinions are acceptable, if you think that linux is the all mighty great products some people might consider it a pile of shit, AND YOU SHOULD RESPECT THAT SIR! I see that this comment brought some very nice disucssion, and showed the opinions of many people, and yet some stupid linux geeks come and down grade it just because it is against their godly program, they don't want someone to touch this operating system with anything bad, hail this moderation system.

Solid State by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 12:17 · Score: 0

The product page for the LittlePC says that the hard disks are solid state. Does anyone in-the-know know how much capacity will be on the card?
The website doesn't say.

- Trollificus, who can only post twice per 24 hours.

Graphical search engine... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 12:19 · Score: -1, Offtopic

Graphical search engine - http://www.kartoo.com

Search the word "slashdot" on this search engine. you will be amazed!!

Re:Graphical search engine... by macdo10 · 2003-02-10 13:06 · Score: 0, Offtopic

Weird ! I suppose that at some point a connection must have been made between Scientology and /. ... Having searched /. tho, I can only find 14 references to scientology, of which the most recent is dated sept. 14th, 2002. So there. Could this be the beginning of a bid to take over the world ? Random link : http://www.xenu.com Cheers, Macdo
Re:Graphical search engine... by charon_on_acheron · 2003-02-10 14:55 · Score: 1

Do you mean 14 postings that refer to Scientology, or 14 articles _with_ postings that refer to Scientology?

Because I know I have seen postings get 30 replies many times, and some I would estimate at almost 100 replies.

So Typically American when...... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 12:19 · Score: 0

You can't even get out of your couches to go skydiving!!, just don't drop the remote !

MOD PARENT DOWN! PARENT IS A LAMEASS TROLL! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 12:21 · Score: -1, Offtopic

good stuff by SubtleNuance · 2003-02-10 12:21 · Score: 3, Informative

I dont normally give free adverts (or any for that matter), but Ive used Stealth's pointing devices/keyboards in an iron foundry (read as; incredibly harsh environment) -- they are they only thing to stand up to the abuse. Good quality stuff.

I 'll bet these little PCs are built equally well.

Case modder's dream. by dwdyer · 2003-02-10 12:21 · Score: 4, Funny

Nah, get one of these little PCs, stick it in a tower case, then you've got the whole damned thing for cold cathode lights, improbable-looking water cooling systems, etc.

-W-

--
-dwd-

Re:Case modder's dream. by jefdiesel · 2003-02-11 04:50 · Score: 1

or as a great joke..
stick the little pc in the top 5.25 drive bay, and then mod the bottem case, add an old full size motherboard and enough PCI cards and ram to make it look like its a 'normal system' cut some big windows and make seal it all up with lexan, basically making a fish tank with the 'fake compruder' enclosed. add some goldfish and plastic plants.
amaze your modder pals when it boots up, completely immersed in water.

--

I hate spyware and spies

Skydiving by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 12:22 · Score: 1, Informative

Tandem skydiving was fun but there's too many accidents for me to jump all the time.

Fatalities:
http://www.skyxtreme.com/safety.html

Re:Skydiving by Shishak · 2003-02-10 12:40 · Score: 5, Informative

I don't have a 100% accurate statistic handy but about 95% of all skydiving fatalities are pilot related. People downsizing their canopies too quickly (smaller = faster = more fun). Hook turning that new uber canopy into the ground at 70 MPH.

The fact is, Skydiving equipment is very safe. When used properly, kept well maintained it will rarely fail. If it does you always have your reserve. It is the skydiver that screws up and dies. Complacency = death in this sport.

My first reserve ride was on a borrowed rig and it was all my fault. I deployed too quickly on a hop-n-pop and had my main wrap around my legs. Let me tell you, going to reserve at terminal hurts like a mother, but I'm alive :)

Take your life into your own hands, SKYDIVE!

--
Now I hope and pray that I will But today I am still, just a bill
Re:Skydiving by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 13:59 · Score: 1, Interesting

Been there. Done that.

Did a tandem jump. They bolt you to a person of far greater skill than you. My partner had done 4500+ jumps.

For us, they videotaped us reading the "I am about to fling myself out of a pefectly good airplane" disclaimer on the permission sheet to ensure that there was no coercion or anything.

I did the jump and was...disappointed.

Perhaps I over rationalized the thing, but it wasn't any fun for me.

First, unlike those free fall rides at amusement parks, there's no real "stomach" drop sensation, which makes sense because terminal velocity is 120ish MPH, and you're already going 100+ MPH in an airplace. You'll get the "Drop" if you leap out of a balloon or do base jumping.

Second, there's no real sense of speed. You don't really know you're doing 120 MPH. All of your points of reference are pretty far away. I guess you'd get it if you zipped past someone who had already pulled their chute, but the mountains are to far away, and the ground is too far away as well.

By the time you get the chute pulled (and encounter odd stresses in interesting places from the rigging straps), you're going much slower as you float to the ground, though the ground comes up pretty fast in the last 100 feet.

Everybody else just had a blast, but for me it wasn't much more than sticking my head in a fast, cool, dry wind. I thought the thing in Vegas where you leap onto the column of air generated by a propeller was more interesting (dunno if that's still there or not).

I do believe, though, that's it's safety is pretty good with an experienced partner. If you're at all inclined, then go for it. If nothing else it's a fun day out with your friends.

Me? I'll stick to motorcycles, thanx. Whitewater rafting is also a blast. That's LOTS of fun.
Re:Skydiving by Nick+Driver · 2003-02-10 14:29 · Score: 2, Funny

Getting out of bed in the morning used to be fun too, but since there's too many accidents, I think I'll just sleep in tomorrow.
Re:Skydiving by Cato+the+Elder · 2003-02-10 15:04 · Score: 1

I deployed too quickly on a hop-n-pop and had my main wrap around my legs. Let me tell you, going to reserve at terminal hurts like a mother, but I'm alive
Hey, far better to take opening shock at terminal than to have to deploy you reserve with the main still wrapped around your leg! That happened to some poor static-line student at Walterboro on Feb. 2ncd, the canopies entangled and he landed on the runway. See the Incidents forum at dropzone if your interested. He lived, but he's in pretty bad shape.
Blue skies
Re:Skydiving by Rocket+Racket · 2003-02-11 05:54 · Score: 1

This thread just makes me think of this song, and in particular this more extreme version of it, that I first read in "Blood on the Risers" (very good Vietnam war memoir, BTW) Tune: Battle Hymn of the Republic

"Is everybody happy", cried the Sargeant looking up.
Our hero, feebly answered "Yes!", and then they stood him up.
He jumped right out the open door, his static line forgot,
He ain't gonna jump no more.

Chorus: Gory, gory, what a Helluva Way to Die!
Gory, gory, what a Helluva Way to Die!
Gory, gory, what a Helluva Way to Die!
He ain't gonna jump no more.

He counted loud, he counted long, he waited for the shock.
He felt the wind, he felt the clouds, he felt the awful drop.
He jerked his cord, the silk spilled out, but wrapped around his legs,
He ain't gonna jump no more.

Chorus

The risers wrapped around his neck, connectors cracked his dome.
The lines were snarled and tied in knots around his skinny bones.
The canopy became his shroud, as he hurtled to his death.
He ain't gonna jump no more.

Chorus

The days he lived, and loved and laughed, kept running through his mind,
He thought about the girl back home, the one he left behind.
He thought about the medics and he wondered what they'd find.
He ain't gonna jump no more.

Chorus

The ambulances were on the spot, the jeeps were running wild.
The medics jumped and screamed with glee. They rolled their sleaves and smiled.
For it had been a week or more since last a chute had failed,
He ain't gonna jump no more.

Chorus

He hit the ground, the sound was "SPLAT". His blood went spurting high.
His comrades then were heard to say, "A helluva way to die".
He lay there rolling round in the welter of his gore,
He ain't gonna jump no more.

Chorus

There was blood upon the risers, there was brains upon the chute.
Intestines were a dangling from the paratroopers boots.
They picked him up, still in his chute and poured him from his boots.
He ain't gonna jump no more.
Chorus

Size Counts by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 12:25 · Score: 0, Troll

Pentium 3 little pc, the size of a CD-ROM.

I had to read this three times before I figured out it was a CD-ROM drive, not a CD-ROM disc. Then I remembered a computer the size of a half height 5.25 inch drive.

WooHoo I'm going to jump with those crazy bastards by Shishak · 2003-02-10 12:25 · Score: 0, Offtopic

next week :) Yep!, going to Eloy, AZ for 6 days of non stop jumping! Gonna do a little head down, some freaky flying. Hopefully the bar under the skyvan won't be broken this time. It is fun hanging from the bottom of a plane at 13,500 feet.

WOOHOO!

everyone should skydive!

--
Now I hope and pray that I will But today I am still, just a bill

IN CASE IT GETS SLASHDOTTED by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 12:26 · Score: -1, Redundant

Slashback: Cooperation, Gravity, Petite

Posted by timothy on Monday February 10, @06:59PM
from the all-good-things dept.

Slashback with more (below) on KDE/GNOME cooperation (hint -- they're not renaming it "GNOMKDE"); the desert parachute nuts, a tiny P4 machine, and another chance to Ask Kevin Mitnick, at least if you're near Pittsburgh. Enjoy!

This is only making my biggest case look even bigger. Andrew Pakula of StealthPC writes: "A little while ago you posted about our Pentium 3 little pc, the size of a CD-ROM. ... Many of emails people sent us however were for people looking for a Pentium 4 little pc but at the time we didn't have anything to offer them with that power.

Well now we do have a Pentium 4 version, slightly taller than the Pentium 3 version it is still very, very small. You can take a look a look at it here. There are several pictures of it there as well as on the images page."

Just don't tell him your full real name. If your question didn't rise to the top of the recent Kevin Mitnick interview, here's your chance: Arvonn Tully points to this site (an activities listing for Carnegie Mellon University) writes "If you look at the bottom of the page you will see that Kevin Mitnick will be coming to Carnegie Mellon and lecturing on March 18th."

Those two are really joined at the XML! JP Schnapper-Casteras of the Free Desktop Accessibility Working Group writes about the post last week titled "KDE And Gnome Cooperate On Interface Guidelines," to clarify the extent of that cooperation: "We're going to co-locate, NOT combine the documents. This means that means there will be separate guidelines for GNOME and KDE in different chapters / sections of the same document. The current overview implies that KDE and GNOME will become stylistically similar, which is not the case. We're simply creating one site and mailing list where HIGs for all desktops can reside."

Lucy in the sky with a junker that's just begging to be dropped. Last September, we mentioned the fellows who like to abuse technology by dropping unusual things (manned automobiles, for one) from the backs of cargo planes for skydiving thrills. If that interested you, you will enjoy (and boggle at) the group's DVD documentary/video montage Good Stuff. I watched it with jaw unhinged; if this doesn't make you want to skydive, nothing will.

how about this little mini-itx sized p4 mobo? by ovidus+naso · 2003-02-10 12:27 · Score: 5, Informative

As spotted on linitx.org: 7in x 7in P4 mobo
Should be much CHEAPER to build a system than the one refered in this article...

--
---------- ovidius naso

Re:how about this little mini-itx sized p4 mobo? by -tji · 2003-02-10 13:27 · Score: 2, Interesting

This looks like a great board.. Integrated USB 2.0 and Firewire are great, especially with only one PCI slot to work with. But, how about a case to put it in?

There are several good options for Mini-ITX motherboards.. If you don't need a lot of CPU power, the VIA EPIA motherboards - with the C3 processor - are a good option. They are low heat, which will help if you can find a small case.

But, this P4 system could be quite challenging, given it's high power and heat dissipation requirements. Anyone have some good suggestions for a case for this thing?
Re:how about this little mini-itx sized p4 mobo? by EverDense · 2003-02-10 13:31 · Score: 2, Insightful

That looks good, thank you very much. If only they'd ditch the printer port, it is
getting pretty hard to buy a printer these days that isn't USB. Might save a little
space on the M/B into the bargain.

--
http://jesus.everdense.com/

One gratuitous incompatibility in GNOME 2.x by rsidd · 2003-02-10 12:29 · Score: 4, Insightful

is the rearrangement of the "OK" and "Cancel" buttons, so that "Cancel" is now on the left and "OK" is on the right, in contrast to GNOME 1.x, KDE (all versions) and Windows. Whose bright idea was this? Perhaps someone who's used to answering questions like "Do you want to do this, no or yes"?

This is my single biggest peeve with GNOME 2.x, which is otherwise looking very nice. Well, if they're cohosting their Human Interface Guide with the KDE folks, hopefully someone will get a clue (the clue being: stay compatible with the rest of the world).

If the GNOME folks ever built a car, very likely they'd put the brake to the right of the accelerator, because that's the way it "should be" for some theoretical reason of their own.

Re:One gratuitous incompatibility in GNOME 2.x by mabster · 2003-02-10 12:35 · Score: 3, Informative

I think it was Apple who decided that OK should be on the right. The idea is that the buttons should work like the 'Next' and 'Back' buttons do in wizards - take you to the next logical step, or go back to the previous one.
When you think of them in that context, OK and Cancel really should be ordered the other way around.
Of course, it's still hard to get used to for your average Windows user (like me).
Re:One gratuitous incompatibility in GNOME 2.x by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 12:44 · Score: 0

UI interface approach, right hand side is prefered by right handed people, so the OK button should be on the right hand side (as should menu bars on web sites -- popularized incorrently by cnet and copied by /. it's history).
Re:One gratuitous incompatibility in GNOME 2.x by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 12:58 · Score: 0

Apple came up with this. Gnome ran with it. It's based on the idea that the rightmost button is "move ahead" and the leftmost is "move back" Makes sense for Back/Next buttons, but it's more-or-less a complete pain in the ass for any other sort of dialog.

It's a bad idea. Not every dialog is a *&#$# wizard! If it was, I would go back to the command line!
Re:One gratuitous incompatibility in GNOME 2.x by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 13:03 · Score: 0

Hmmm, so thats why the gnome menu is on the top, yet each app has its own menu. Gnome, its a mac os clone that tries to look like windows,

I like my k on the bottom right, with the window controls on the left, its only natrual to me.
Re:One gratuitous incompatibility in GNOME 2.x by Fluffy+the+Cat · 2003-02-10 13:07 · Score: 4, Insightful

1) It standardises the position of "OK". There are significantly more boxes that only have a single "OK" gadget than there are only having a single "Cancel" gadget.

2) People tend to leave the mouse in the bottom corner of dialog boxes while they're reading them. Dialog boxes should ideally be designed that most of the time the user wishes to choose "OK". Having the "OK" button on the right reduces the time taken to respond to the dialog.

I find it significantly nicer with this arrangement. I'm unconvinced by the "Do it the same as the rest of the world" argument - doing it right is more important.
Re:One gratuitous incompatibility in GNOME 2.x by hobbs · 2003-02-10 13:25 · Score: 1

I'm unconvinced by the "Do it the same as the rest of the world" argument - doing it right is more important.
I'm unconvinced that the GNOME folks should go against the grain of companies that have spent millions on CHI studies. Perhaps that's why I prefer KDE ...
Re:One gratuitous incompatibility in GNOME 2.x by oliverthered · 2003-02-10 13:27 · Score: 1

People read left to right or right to left (depending on where you come from).

For left to righters.

the bottom right hand of a dialogue is the last bit you read (you expect things to finish there)

So, you read the message and look for the bottom right hand paragraph to see what to do, and are presented with an oddly arainged set of choices.
this is bad.

And for my second point, it is always better to cancel and retry than acidently do something. so by your argument cancel should be bottom right.

--
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Re:One gratuitous incompatibility in GNOME 2.x by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 13:30 · Score: 0

but people read from left to right.(ok western people) things to do first should be on the left and things to do last on the right. umm... like /.

Now if they swapped submit and preview around I may preview more often,
Re:One gratuitous incompatibility in GNOME 2.x by pete_p · 2003-02-10 13:35 · Score: 1

Cancel, OK is the standard on the Mac, where 'accept' action is normally on the right, and almost always the default. (If accepting is destructive, the accept button may not be the default, but it is usually still on the right.)

--
Insert wit here.
Re:One gratuitous incompatibility in GNOME 2.x by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 13:38 · Score: 0

Yes but CANCEL and OK are analogous to BACK AND NEXT.
Re:One gratuitous incompatibility in GNOME 2.x by Spyky · 2003-02-10 13:42 · Score: 3, Insightful

The Apple Macintosh has prefered this configuration of Cancel and OK since it was first created in 1984. It is incorrect to say that GNOME is going against the grain of companies that have spent millions on HCI studies, because Apple is definitely one of those companies.

Aqua HIG

-Spyky
Re:One gratuitous incompatibility in GNOME 2.x by wadetemp · 2003-02-10 13:46 · Score: 1

1) It standardises the position of "OK". There are significantly more boxes that only have a single "OK" gadget than there are only having a single "Cancel" gadget.

Eh? I've heard this arguement both ways and, no offense, but I really hate with the "Cancel OK" order and see no merit to that arguement.

In a dialog with a single button and no closing confirmation the button serves neither an acceptance or a denial function... it means "get this dialog out of my way." All changes made on a single-button dialog are implicitly (or are they?) saved the minute you make them, and it doesn't matter what the button is called.

If you think about that for a little bit, you might wonder why there are ANY dialogs with only a single button. Doesn't that seem restrictive? If all dialogs had an acceptance and denial button then there'd not only be positional standardization but numerical and functional standardization. Note I'm not talking about popup-message type dialogs... they are often significantly different in shape and size to put them in another category altogether.

Assuming all larger dialogs have an acceptance and denial state I think natural reading order makes most sense for button order... right-to-left in my case, so "OK Cancel." (OK being first because it's often more reversable than redoing all your work.. your milage my vary there.)

Even if people do tend to leave the mouse in the bottom right corner they don't read in a mouse-dialog direction... and that offsets any advantage that an 80 pixel mouse distance delta might give you with "Cancel OK" (assuming most people want to hit OK rather than cancel for the reversability reason I mentioned.)
Re:One gratuitous incompatibility in GNOME 2.x by j1mmy · 2003-02-10 14:05 · Score: 1

God forbid they actually force you to read the buttons before you go clicking around blindly.
Re:One gratuitous incompatibility in GNOME 2.x by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 14:37 · Score: 0

BS.

It may work better for you, but your reasoning makes no sense. It sounds good, but I doubt you have any real statistics to back it up.
Re:One gratuitous incompatibility in GNOME 2.x by spitzak · 2003-02-10 15:36 · Score: 2, Insightful

I don't find the "standardize the position of OK" argument convincing. This could also be "fixed" by moving the OK on a one-button dialog box left so it is in the same position as the two-button one.

The truth of all this argument is that OK-right was the design used on Macintoshes, which most post-Mac Unix software copied. There were some theoretical arguments for why this was better and thus selected by the Mac, but they are not really strong.

Like usual it was Microsoft that ignored prevailing standards and set their own and reversed the order (they also added the yes/no/cancel type dialogs, which had the annoying effect of reversing what yes/no meant when exiting a program compared to the Mac standard).

However imho the cause is lost. Microsoft set the standard and everybody (not just Gnome, but Mac) should give up and follow it. The alternatives do not have strong enough arguments for the this standard to be ignored.
Re:One gratuitous incompatibility in GNOME 2.x by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 16:47 · Score: 0

The alternatives do not have strong enough arguments for the this standard to be ignored.

I propose a new standard, in which buttons can be placed anywhere sensible, and users read what is written in the dialog before they click any buttons.

This would go a long way towards harmonious computing without forcing people to think the same way you do (or Microsoft does, or whatever)
Re:One gratuitous incompatibility in GNOME 2.x by oliverthered · 2003-02-10 22:56 · Score: 1

That's a stupid idea, the ELUA is proof that no one ever reads the message, so reading the buttons would be pointless.

--
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Re:One gratuitous incompatibility in GNOME 2.x by jschrod · 2003-02-11 02:11 · Score: 1

Every developer who designs dialog boxes with only a single "OK" gadget on it should be sentenced to 7x24 hours Celine Dion, or something similar horrible.
For a user, these boxes often bring unpleasent messages. I don't want to confirm them with "OK" and no chance to stop. Either it is a warning, then one needs a "Cancel". Or it's a message, then a simple "Close" suffices.

--
Joachim

People don't write Manifestos any more -- what's going on in this world? [Frank Zappa]
Re:One gratuitous incompatibility in GNOME 2.x by vile+maxim · 2003-02-11 03:42 · Score: 1

I really cannot believe that people feel strongily about this. I wouldn't even have remembered that gnome2 does that if it wasn't point out.

The computer world is fast changing, IMHO, something like this should be invisible.

-Jeff
Re:One gratuitous incompatibility in GNOME 2.x by nutshell42 · 2003-02-11 04:49 · Score: 1

1) It standardises the position of "OK". There are significantly more boxes that only have a single "OK" gadget than there are only having a single "Cancel" gadget.
IMHO it's not the position of the "OK" button which should be standardized but what you do, and I think it's the correct thing to position the "aknowledge but change nothing" action in the lower right corner, if you change nothing and it was wrong you can get the dialog again if you change it that's often not the case (think: you haven't saved do you really want to quit?)
2) People tend to leave the mouse in the bottom corner of dialog boxes while they're reading them. Dialog boxes should ideally be designed that most of the time the user wishes to choose "OK". Having the "OK" button on the right reduces the time taken to respond to the dialog.
designing your dialog boxes the way 95% of the people are used to should save much more time, you should only change something if there's a real and significant advantage compared to the old standard (which in this case is not there, you also could argue that we read from left to right (which is often invoked to defend cancel/ok) and therefore the ok/cancel order is more natural as the affirmative action is the leftmost which is the whole point - there's no "right" way to do it, it's only a question of choosing A (and satisfy the apple-worshipping crowd) or B (to satisfy the used-to-windows crowd))

--
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage

Direct link to Mitnick news by generic-man · 2003-02-10 12:29 · Score: 3, Informative

It's a pretty brief blurb, but AB's Slash-like site actually has comments on the article.

Direct link

--
For more information, click here.

not GNOMEKDE... KNOME! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 12:30 · Score: 0

not sorry.

Put a by gearheadsmp · 2003-02-10 12:32 · Score: 2, Interesting

LiveDVD in there (ala LiveCD) and you've got quite a big a workspace. Or better yet, ditch the optical drive, drop a bunch of ram in, and have the boot off net, downloading the entire OS into ram.

It's been done by Wee · 2003-02-10 12:32 · Score: 5, Informative

Those "little pc's" would be great for a bunch of dedicated servers in a compact space... I wonder if one could remove the CD drive and put a notebook HD in? That would be perfect

It's already been done, and done better than a stack of these little CD-sized guys. The RLX deals are pretty damn amazing. I've had occasion to see two different models in the past two years, and have been impressed each time. My favorite has to the be Transmeta-based blades, just because the consume like 9 watts when sitting idle. They're cool enough that you'd have a hard time telling they were powered on.

What makes something like an RLX chassis better than stacking in "little PCs" is that RLX has some very nice mgmt software that comes with the whole unit. Basically, you dedicate one blade to do mgmt stuff, and the rest (whether you have one chassis or ten) can all be managed by it. You can have all the blades sitting there blank, and remotely (and programmatically) boot up and then re-image any number of them with Windows or Linux, in any configuration you've set up. (The OS images are actually just tarballs of previously-installed operating systems you've set up and saved. So you can dedicate one blade to OS imaging duty, put Red Hat in whater config you want on it, upgrade the kernel or whatever and then push that tarball out to a "test blade" if you want to see how your apps runs.)

You also get more hardware with something like an RLX. The newer ones have dual fibre channel NICs, dual Gig Ethernet NICS, and a dedicated backplane network for "out of band" management, and an optional layer 2 switch for that chassis. That all means that you can make a cluster out of them really easily. And it means that you can do away with their hard drives, boot off the net and use network disk everywhere while still keeping them as "individual" servers. One more bonus: you don't have a cabling nightmare, and don't really need KVM for every server. They are also designed with heat output in mind. You can literally fill a 42U rack full of them (which is a total of like 330-something P3s) and still power it up. They're hot-swappable, too.

I don't work for RLX, I've just seen them up close a couple times (we're demoing one unit now, and will get another soon). If you are thinking of making a cheap cluster, or just want a lot of PCs in a little space withut a management headache, you might do well to look into RLX.

-B

--

Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.

Re:It's been done by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 16:32 · Score: 0

blades are too expensive. colo space isnt that pricey nowadays, even downtown manhattan dcs are pretty cheap. you would be hardpressed to financially justify forking out that kind of money instead of getting a 1u dual p3 tualatin with 2 gbs of ram.

-rusko
Re:It's been done by Wee · 2003-02-10 18:17 · Score: 2, Informative

blades are too expensive.
That depends on what you need the machines to do. When you factor in management costs for a cluster of full-fledged 1u PCs, blades are in no way too expensive.
colo space isnt that pricey nowadays, even downtown manhattan dcs are pretty cheap.
Again, not my experience. Most people I've seen have a rack or 12 and they don't want to buy more square footage. Some are in a unuversity setting where floorspace can be at a premium. Many realize that they can replace a half rack of 1Us with a half rack of 3 times the server power.
you would be hardpressed to financially justify forking out that kind of money instead of getting a 1u dual p3 tualatin with 2 gbs of ram
Not true. At the college where I work, we can't afford a lot of high-end 1U machines, in either replacement parts or management cost terms. With an RLX, we pay a lot up front for the chassis, but we can add blades very cheaply. And if we have RLX's management stuff can also accommodate requests like "I'd like 27 x86 servers for a class on distributed computing.. can you have it ready by next week?"
Blades fill a purpose, of which clusters are one.
-B

--
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.

Little PCs -- Do you actually want to sell one? by Cokelee · 2003-02-10 12:34 · Score: 5, Informative

Wow, tiny computer. Nice. Look a n o t h e r tiny computer.

Re:Little PCs -- Do you actually want to sell one? by deniea · 2003-02-10 13:20 · Score: 1

Hm.. No..

What is in your links are all notebooks, not 'desktops'. Quite different in my opinion

If not bowling balls, why not Silly Putty? by Xandar01 · 2003-02-10 12:36 · Score: 3, Funny

Silly Putty Physics Experiment

http://www.sunbelt-software.com/stu/putty/index.cf m

--
Life moves pretty fast; if you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. -FB

Re:If not bowling balls, why not Silly Putty? by gregger · 2003-02-10 14:53 · Score: 1

That's funny... I submitted this story to Slashdot back when they published this in the W2KNews thing and it has been pending in my Slashdot queue for about 5 months now!

Someday those trained squirrels will get around to rejecting it!

TTFN
Re:If not bowling balls, why not Silly Putty? by Xandar01 · 2003-02-11 04:06 · Score: 1

Yeah, I am sure W2KNews could use a good /.ing for that silly putty thing.

--
Life moves pretty fast; if you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. -FB

stealth pc by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 12:38 · Score: 0

Looks interesting.. a little overkill for me though. I'm looking for a small gateway PC, something with a hard drive, DVDROM, serial port for UPS montoring, and three Ethernet ports for firewall purposes (or two ethernet and one wireless). Flash hard drive isn't necessary, and neither is good sound and graphics. External power supply is good though.

It seems like most of these little PCs are geared toward folks who want to make DVD players or home entertainment systems .. not servers (for instance, I would like ECC RAM instead of surround sound and MPEG decoding). Anybody have any tips for a small server?

And about their web site .. hello, BLACK web site background combined with pictures of BLACK products on BLACK backgrounds equals USELESS PICTURES!!

Other Small PCs by OrangeHairMan · 2003-02-10 12:44 · Score: 4, Interesting

Most of these small PCs I've looked at have been >$300 (the one linked in the story doesn't list a price), and haven't been fast enough for my needs, so I looked and found a better solution: Mini-ITX.

These motherboards are only 100 dollars and a little more than 6 inches square. They have integrated video, 800MHz VIA C3 processors, ethernet, TV out, sound, and 2 IDE busses. And the fact that they use C3 processors, they only consume 10 watts, for the whole motherboard! You can get more info here:

http://mini-itx.com/
http://shop2.outpost.com/product/3349552
http://www.via.com.tw/en/VInternet/mini_itx.jsp

Orange

Re:Other Small PCs by IanBevan · 2003-02-10 14:17 · Score: 1

the one linked in the story doesn't list a price
Yes it does... $1295 US for the base PC (60GB HDD, no OS), plus a bunch of options.

--
Never, ever lose a file again. Ever.
Re:Other Small PCs by drinkypoo · 2003-02-11 03:57 · Score: 1

Mini-ITX systems are cool if you need something low-power but the Eden chip is not superscalar, dunno about the C3. The eden is far more common though not at the 800MHz/1GHz speed.
Also the Mini-ITX types are missing a point entirely, they need to make a board with at least dual if not triple ethernet for network gateways. You want to keep them small, hence this rules out the use of PCI cards...

--
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Re:Other Small PCs by OrangeHairMan · 2003-02-11 11:09 · Score: 1

Haha, well you really think that a small link buried in a page of pictures would be noticed, and a PDF would be downloaded just to see the price, when I'm not in the market for it now? C'mon...this is Slashdot.... ;)

But seriously, I checked the ordering page and it didn't have any prices...so....

Orange
Re:Other Small PCs by OrangeHairMan · 2003-02-11 11:33 · Score: 1

Mini-ITX systems are cool if you need something low-power

You're right; they're not the best for playing the newest games or trying to compile Gentoo or whatever that's processor- or GPU-intensive. But it can play MP3s and be a dedicated server for small LAN parties, which is all I do with it. Yes, it is a niche product, so it won't always be the small system that works for everybody.

Also the Mini-ITX types are missing a point entirely, they need to make a board with at least dual if not triple ethernet for network gateways. You want to keep them small, hence this rules out the use of PCI carrds...

With one 10/100 ethernet built in and the ability to get PCI riser cards (you can fit two gigabit PCI cards on top of the mainboard with a riser from VIA) you could fill the need for three ethernet ports while only making it a inch or two taller. But again, the Mini-ITX motherboards are designed to do one task and do it well, rather than covering all the bases. I popped in one of these and use it as server for small LAN parties that I go to with friends. So, this board fits my needs, but may not fit yours. I'm just telling everybody about it because it is small, and can be fit into the same cases and form factors as the ones listed in the story, and costs one twelth less. :)

Orange

Performance in small PCs? by BitHive · 2003-02-10 12:52 · Score: 2, Interesting

To me, a small mainboard means bad performance (i.e. memory throughput etc). Is this the case? I would gladly sacrifice expandability (PCI slots) if I was sure that the components that count (HDD, CPU, RAM) were still performing optimally. . .

Re:Performance in small PCs? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 12:55 · Score: 0

Wouldn't that mean the opposite (i.e. a smaller mainboard would mean slightly less distance to travel between components)? I have a mini-itx PC and haven't noticed it being any slower than a normal PC.
Re:Performance in small PCs? by Cid+Highwind · 2003-02-10 19:15 · Score: 1

Not really.
I have a Flex-ATX form factor system (size of a large toaster), and seems just as fast as any other system with the same memory/chipset/CPU combination. As long as you get a mini-system with a standard AMD/Intel CPU (not a Via C3) it will be just as fast. Find one with an AGP slot, since onboard video tends to be ssslllloooowww.

--
0 1 - just my two bits

Go Arvonn by Ponty · 2003-02-10 12:54 · Score: 0, Redundant

See subject. AB is cool.

Re:Go Arvonn by mike_the_kid · 2003-02-11 03:34 · Score: 1

Yeah, he's a hell of a football player, too. Remember the IM fields and the tattered shirts!

--
Troll Like a Champion Today

Combined by Shadow+Wrought · 2003-02-10 13:08 · Score: 5, Funny

So Kevin Mitnick loaded both Gnome and KDE onto a Stealth Pentium 4 Little PC only to drop it out of an airplane?

Cool;-)

--
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?

Act of God aka Bowling for Deities. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 13:09 · Score: 0

"An other friend bought some bowling balls at a thrift store back in High School. They rolled it down the street to hit a curb where it would fly high up in the air - much to their amusement. They did this about 6 times until it smashed through the curb, flew off into the air and went through someones roof. Fortunately no one was home. But it taught them why dropping things isn't always a good idea."

Uhhu...well SOMEONE owes me a new roof. The insurance company didn't buy my "Act of God" reason.

That's not funny by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 13:15 · Score: 0

THIS is funny.

Carmack follow-up by Reality+Master+101 · 2003-02-10 13:16 · Score: 4, Informative

Following up on a recent story (Carmack Needs Rocket Fuel), John an interesting post to the CATS board, which I'll reproduce here to save Slashdotting:

Something a little weird happened on friday -- out of the blue, the local FAA guy that had been running us around about low altitude flight testing at my property outside Dallas, just called up and said that we can do flight tests to 3,500' if we call them on Wednesday, then again on Saturday before we fly. Someone must have prodded him.

A couple of the OSIDA folks visited with us on Saturday. I was complaining about our current peroxide supply problems with FMC, and they asked if it would be helpful to have a governor or senator call someone. Yes indeed, I think that would be helpful!

I'm not too worried about things getting worse on the clearance side. Especially in our case, where we really don't overfly anything -- we just go straght up, then straight down. We expect to come down pretty fast on the parachutes, so we shouldn't even drift very far.

John Carmack

So perhaps things are moving forward after all! All you "chem majors" can now stop e-mailing him. :)

--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.

Its Time Again by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 13:18 · Score: -1, Offtopic

It's time once again to consider the candidates for the 2003 Stella Awards. The Stella's are named after 81-year-old Stella Liebeck who spilled coffee on herself and successfully sued McDonalds.

That case inspired the Stella Awards for the most uniquely successful lawsuits in the United States for last year. Actually, joint awards should be given to the plaintiff attorneys and the flaming idiots on the juries who awarded anything at all to these morons--who deserved NOTHING!!!!

The following are this year's candidates:

Kathleen Robertson of Austin, Texas, was awarded $780,000 by a jury of her peers after breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler who was running inside a furniture store. The owners of the store were understandably surprised at the verdict, considering the misbehaving little toddler was Ms. Robertson's son.

A 19-year-old Carl Truman of Los Angeles won $74,000 and medical expenses when his neighbor ran over his hand with a Honda Accord. Mr. Truman apparently didn't notice there was someone at the wheel of the car when he was trying to steal his neighbor's hubcaps.

Terrence Dickson of Bristol, Pennsylvania, was leaving a house he had just finished robbing by way of the garage. He was not able to get the garage door to go up since the automatic door opener was malfunctioning. He couldn't reenter the house because the door connecting the house and garage locked when he pulled it shut. The family was on vacation, and Mr. Dickson found himself locked in the garage for eight days. He subsisted on a case of Pepsi he found, and a large bag of dry dog food. He sued the homeowner's insurance claiming the situation caused him undue mental anguish. The jury agreed, to the tune of $500,000.

Jerry Williams of Little Rock, Arkansas, was awarded $14,500 and medical expenses after being bitten on the buttocks by his next door neighbor's beagle. The beagle was on a chain in its owner's fenced yard. The award was less than sought because the jury felt the dog might have been just a little provoked at the time by Mr. Williams who was shooting it repeatedly with a pellet gun.

A Philadelphia restaurant was ordered to pay Amber Carson of
Lancaster, Pennsylvania, $113,500 after she slipped on a soft drink and broke her coccyx! (tailbone). The beverage was on the floor because Ms. Carson had thrown it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument.

Kara Walton of Claymont, Delaware, successfully sued the owner of a night club in a neighboring city when she fell from the bathroom window to the floor and knocked out her two front teeth. This occurred while Ms. Walton was trying to sneak through the window in the ladies room to avoid paying the $3.50 cover charge. She was awarded $12,000 and dental expenses.

This year's favorite could easily be Mr. Merv Grazinski of
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Mr. Grazinski purchased a brand new 32-foot Winnebago motor home. On his first trip home, having driven onto the freeway, he set the cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left the drivers seat to go into the back and make himself a cup of coffee. Not surprisingly, the RV left the freeway, crashed and overturned. Mr. Grazinski sued Winnebago for not advising him in the owner's manual that he couldn't actually do this. The jury awarded him $1,750,000 plus a new motor home. The company actually changed their manuals on the basis of this suit, just in case there were any other complete morons buying their recreation vehicles!

Sorry for anyone who thinks this is spam, but I thought some of these were priceless and deserved a posting!

Re:Its Time Again by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 14:32 · Score: -1, Troll

What's priceless is the laugh I'm getting at your stupidity, for falling for such obvious urban legends. Check out snopes.com under the 'Legal' section if you wish to be enlightened.

Of course they're not... by Exiler · 2003-02-10 13:21 · Score: 2, Funny

They're renaming it KGNOMKDE

--
Banaaaana!

Re:Of course they're not... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 18:34 · Score: 0

Nah, it is probably KNOME.

--Coder
Re:Of course they're not... by myom · 2003-02-10 20:02 · Score: 1

No, GNODE

A "Six Pack"... by EverDense · 2003-02-10 13:25 · Score: 1

Finally, what I've always wanted... A Six Pack that won't make me more attractive to women.

--
http://jesus.everdense.com/

Re:A "Six Pack"... by Monkeyman334 · 2003-02-10 19:55 · Score: 2, Funny

Finally, what I've always wanted... A Six Pack [littlepc.com] that won't make me more attractive to women.

I don't get it. Who exactly is drinking the six pack to make you more attractive?
Re:A "Six Pack"... by EverDense · 2003-02-11 17:13 · Score: 1

The women, of course.

--
http://jesus.everdense.com/

Not gratuitous by Chuck+Chunder · 2003-02-10 13:27 · Score: 1

At least not in the

Not called for by the circumstances; without reason, cause, or proof; adopted or asserted without any good ground; as, a gratuitous assumption.

sense of the word as the decision on this matter was a reasoned one.

Sure, some decisions may cause a bit of short term pain for some long term gain but being able to make those decisions is part of what good leadership is about.

--
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park

roads have built in gutters by AlaskanUnderachiever · 2003-02-10 13:28 · Score: 5, Informative

Doesn't mention where they rolled it. But in Anchorage, Alaska at least the vast majority of our roads all have two nice "ruts" per lane that would be deep enough to guide a bowling ball nicely for a mile or two. I've personally seen them be up to 4" deep. And while it's nice that a road is "designed" to be convex, they rarely stay that way for long in any area with heavy traffic and poor quality asphalt.

--
Find out about my new childrens book: SS Death Camp Criminal Batallion Go To Monte Carlo For The Massacre

Noise ? Wireless ? by IanBevan · 2003-02-10 13:37 · Score: 3, Insightful

Does anybody know how noisy (or not) these little PCs are ?

It also seems to me that they would be a lot more useful to many folks if they had 802.11 wireless networking. Their two featured models (p3 and p4) don't have spare PCI slots, nor do they have a PCMCIA slot (as far as I can see anyway) although I guess you could add it using the usb port. Perhaps an IRDA port would be good also ?

--
Never, ever lose a file again. Ever.

Re:Noise ? Wireless ? by stefanb · 2003-02-11 01:52 · Score: 2, Informative

Lex Barebone has fan-less 533 MHz Mini-IXT boards, including one with three Realtek 10/100 chips, or two Intel 10/100 and one Intel GigE.
There's also a Atmel-based 802.11b controller you can add as an option. Can't seem to find it on their site, but I've seen it at some European resellers.
Not too expesive either: with the wireless option and the Intel chips, it runs at around 400 EUR (plus memory and storage).

Co-locate ?? by IanBevan · 2003-02-10 13:39 · Score: 1

We're going to co-locate...

So exactly what does this get me as a developer. No doubt I'm missing the point here, enlighten me somebody...

--
Never, ever lose a file again. Ever.

K is for Kompressor by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 13:42 · Score: -1, Troll

B is for Briefcase, with money bring to me.
C is for Candlestick, I hit you in the knee
D is for Deutschland, und Deutschland victory
K is for Kompressor, Kompressor is for me!

Why Ko KDE Kusers insist Kn using Khe letter K as Khe first Ketter of Kvery Word?

Because Kompressor does not dance.

Boulder Trundling by sharrestom · 2003-02-10 14:14 · Score: 1

A very old (seventies) Great Pacific Ironworks catalog (Chouniard's hardware side of the biz) had some great stuff on Boulder Trundling. A sport for mountaineers before mountaineering was popularized.

Redefining the Slashdot Effect? by Osty · 2003-02-10 14:16 · Score: 2, Interesting

Could this be a new consequence of the Slashdot Effect? We all know about the damaging Slashdot Effect, where websites are literally blown out of existence by the huge amount of traffic Slashdot can generate. However, it seems very likely that theCarmack's change in luck so shortly after Slashdot's article had something to do with the Slashdot article. Maybe the widespread airing of his plight got back to the officials who were blocking him, or perhaps there are Slashdot readers involved in the same offices that turned around and decided to help rather than hinder.

Just an interesting observation, is all. Good luck to theCarmack.

Small PCs: Needed, one with two ethernet adapters by TokyoBoy · 2003-02-10 14:18 · Score: 1

Small PCs are just too cool. However, while working on the engineering team at Caldera, we had one from Fujitsu (marketed as the "PathNavigator" or "PathNavi") that we as engineers were able to play with.

The cool thing is that it had two ethernet jacks. This made it a great DHCP/NIS/Samba/auth/firewall/gw/whatever appliance.

I've been searchnig for a small x86 based unit like this for a long time for personal use. I've seen OpenBrick (which has a PCMCIA slot which can be used for an additional ethernet), and the units mentioned in this article but they all have only one built-in ethernet. Anyone know of something similar with two ethernet interfaces?

--
Mecworks BLOG

Not as small but a LOT cheaper :-) by Nick+Driver · 2003-02-10 14:25 · Score: 1

Being the cheap bastard I am, I wanted a very small Linux box for my new internet server, but didn't want to fork out more than a couple hundred bucks. I found a really nice black AOpen mATX case (only handles the short PCI cards) at NewEgg, got an MSI MS-6368L mobo and a 1.1GHz Celeron (Tualatin) cpu, all for under $150. I already have the PC100 memory and 10GB hard drive from old computers long since disassembled. Loaded SuSE 8.1 on it and it screams. Way overkill for a firewall/NAT/webserver/email server/whatever box, but sure is a lot of bang for minimal bucks and sits happily in a small space in my bookshelf... almost dead silent too, except for the hard drive.

The solution by marm · 2003-02-10 14:28 · Score: 2, Interesting

Adjust the button order programmatically depending on what environment the app is running in.

When running in KDE, GNOME/GTK+ programs should adopt the KDE button conventions (and possibly other UI choices).

When running in GNOME, KDE/Qt programs should adopt the GNOME conventions.

For KDE apps at least, this is relatively simple - much of the KDE user interface style is already programmatically enforced. Switching button order on dialogs (that inherit KDialogBase, and that's most of them) is a one-liner, a few more lines if it's to be run-time configurable. Similarly, changing menu and toolbar conventions/layout involves using a different XML file to merge with - hey presto, all the menus and toolbar buttons in all KDE apps are arranged differently.

I don't know how easy this would be from a GNOME perspective - my guess is, at least for the button ordering, quite easy - the switch before GNOME2 was released didn't seem to take very long. As for menu/toolbar conventions, this depends on how many GNOME apps use GLADE rather than hardcoding their interface...

Little PC = Disaster Recovery Option by ashitaka · 2003-02-10 14:36 · Score: 2, Insightful

OK. We've had a major earthquake. Our building is inaccessible. The off-site tapes won't be available for a couple of days. Even so, I still need to gather the requisite server hardware, tape drive, software (Arcserve - be gentle) and get it all re-installed and recovered to a point at which we can access our data and start producing documents again.

Alternatively I could have a couple of these mini-PCs pre-configured, with a weekly or monthly backup of current production documents, databases, message stores, etc.

In this case it would be one Win2K box with SQL Server, Exchange, IIS and iManage. It would be enough to get us running with a few laptops thrown together on a wireless LAN. I could have the firm running the next day.

Any flaws in this plan?

(Don't bother mentioning Linux. Our Novell servers have already been replaced with RedHat. The requirement for Win2K as the server comes from Exchange and SQL Server that cannot be replaced in our real-world environment.

--
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.

Re:Little PC = Disaster Recovery Option by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 15:08 · Score: 0

Power.

Network connectivity. OK, you got the servers sort of up, but what about the rest of the network between your computers and the rest of the world?
Re:Little PC = Disaster Recovery Option by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 16:31 · Score: 0

"Don't bother mentioning Linux. Our Novell servers have already been replaced with RedHat. The requirement for Win2K as the server comes from Exchange and SQL Server that cannot be replaced in our real-world environment."

You mean Exchange and SQL can't be replaced in YOUR "real-world" environment. Right?
Re:Little PC = Disaster Recovery Option by hughk · 2003-02-10 19:12 · Score: 1

Too small, you need their lqarger models (lower on the same page) or a shuttle or similar with enough memory and disk space. The issue with the really small boards is that it becomes rather difficult to shoehorn everything there. You may also find that you need to split the system across a second mini-PC.
You will have to buy at least a single-user Exchange+Server licence so you can keep it preconfigured, i.e. to run replication on Exchange and SQL Server. However, remember that you can only move the multi-user licenses around when the primary system is dead.
It is those little additional items keeping the systems legal that will cost you (more than the hardware). I've gone through this before so I sympathise.

--
See my journal, I write things there
Re:Little PC = Disaster Recovery Option by ashitaka · 2003-02-10 19:13 · Score: 1

You mean Exchange and SQL can't be replaced in YOUR "real-world" environment. Right?

Wrong. In the real world hacks like Ximian's Exchange Connector and databases like MySQL don't cut it.

The apps drive the back-end requirements. As a mid-size legal firm we are dependant on a robust, simple to use and administer document management system. We happen to use iManage which runs best on MS SQL Server.

The firm messaging application, like most other legal firms is Outlook. Until a complete Linux-based groupware messaging replacement for Exchange Server comes along that will be the back-end messaging server of choice.

And THAT, my friend, is the Real World. (tm)

--
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
Re:Little PC = Disaster Recovery Option by myom · 2003-02-10 19:59 · Score: 1

Companies actually existed without Internet connections in the Ancient Times, I have heard.
Re:Little PC = Disaster Recovery Option by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-11 04:55 · Score: 0

Your real world is dull and boring. Mine involves getting a daily blow job at work.

i give the DVD "two enthusiastic thumbs off" by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 15:00 · Score: 0

the dvd rocks! when i show it to my non-jumping friends they just kind of stare at the tv slack-jawed. most skydiving videos suck - not this one. in the skydiving world jennings is a legend.

i give it two enthusiastic thumbs off! :-)
saudi guy

Skyjive by Danny+Rathjens · 2003-02-10 15:00 · Score: 1

Oh Stewardess, does anyone speak 'skyjive'?

That Charlie Sheen movie... by TWX_the_Linux_Zealot · 2003-02-10 15:11 · Score: 3, Informative

That movie was called "Terminal Velocity", and seemed pretty cool to me when I was 14 and in a preview audience. Of course, I was 14.

They dropped something like sixteen Cadillacs out of the plane they were using to get all of the scenes they needed for that last shot. It was pretty cool, but if I remember correctly, one or two of the cars landed on something that made it a bit of a mess to clean off of the Arizona desert. Nothing that killed anyone, but still a bit weird.

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IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS,
And everywhere the language went, it was a total loss...

agree disagree, what is the question by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 15:16 · Score: 0

Ah, so they agree to disagree, in perfect form.

McGyver Episode too. by dJCL · 2003-02-10 15:19 · Score: 1

There is a McGyber episode where they have something some guy wants in the car, they put it in a cargo plane with the back door open to basically kill him, he then proceded to use his swis army knife a blanket and a rope to build a parachute for the whole car... And jumps... It is a great series.

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On Arrakis: early worm gets the bird. Magister mundi sum!

Re:Small PCs: Needed, one with two ethernet adapte by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-10 15:21 · Score: 1, Informative

You want a Soekris box. 486/133, 64mb ram, three 10/100s, compactflash, even a 3.3v pci slot. 10 watts and 4.9"x5.7".

littlepc by RestiffBard · 2003-02-10 16:11 · Score: 1

ok great a little pc. but dudes if you're going to show me a black pc do it against a white background. half those images are damn near invisible.

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- /* dead coders leave no comments */

Re:littlepc by shylock0 · 2003-02-10 18:15 · Score: 1

That's why it's a stealth pc...

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Statistically speaking, there's a 99.998% chance that my IQ is higher than yours. Get over it.

Yeah, well... by EnderWiggin99 · 2003-02-10 18:41 · Score: 1

How often does a dialogue box pop up where the affirmative outcome is desireable? Usually they're meant as warnings. I haven't seen a dialogue box yet that asks "Are you sure you want to open this document?"

Re:Yeah, well... by nullard · 2003-02-11 04:55 · Score: 1

What about "Save this document before quitting?"

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t'nera semordnilap

Re:WooHoo I'm going to jump with those crazy basta by CvD · 2003-02-10 21:18 · Score: 2, Interesting

So what's freaky flying then? freak brother? As in sitflying? head up?

I was in Perris this summer... jumped their skyvan a couple times... didn't do the hanging thing tho... next time maybe... :-)

Have fun man! Wish I was there (weather really sucks right now here in the Netherlands).

Cheers!

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The Official Steve Ballmer Webpage

Curved roads (Re:If they can drop automobiles?) by Gantoris · 2003-02-11 00:59 · Score: 1

designed to be convex (high in the middle, low on the sides) so that rain drains off.

Thats refered to as a "macadam road surface" or "tarmacadam", becase it was invented by John Loudon McAdam, who happens to be my great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather. ;) and here's a link. And another.

Henry Rollins by miller701 · 2003-02-11 03:10 · Score: 1

Henry Rollins has a funny story about how in Austrailia, he threw a rock off a cliff /*Intense Rollins mode on ---Destroy motherf*&Xor! Yeah! /*Intense Rollins mode off And the fisherman sitting on the beach near where the rock landed wasn't too pleased. He then envisioned himself being thrown off the cliff by the Aussie fisherman and his buddies and decided that he's going to be a nice guy, for at least the rest of the tour. It's on the "Human Butt" spoken word CD

In WWII, They Dropped TANKS! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-11 03:13 · Score: 0

Apparently Germany tested airdropping tanks in WW II. There are references hither and yon to it. Oh...and these were tanks under parachutes, so they were useful as tanks rather than as kinetic weapons. (Yes, I know the USA has had similar abilities, although I haven't found references to an M-1 being able to do it)

Re:Curved roads (Re:If they can drop automobiles?) by GreyPoopon · 2003-02-11 06:44 · Score: 1

Funny that the Romans were using this "invention" more than 1700 years earlier. :-)

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GreyPoopon
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Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?

Re:Curved roads (Re:If they can drop automobiles?) by Gantoris · 2003-02-11 14:19 · Score: 1

fair enough, I should have said the "inventor" in the "modern" era.

Re:Curved roads (Re:If they can drop automobiles?) by GreyPoopon · 2003-02-12 04:17 · Score: 1

Nah, it was cool. I just couldn't resist. He just took the Roman concept and applied it to "modern" building materials and provided a design with optimal or semi-optimal measurements. Besides, I think I read somewhere that much of the progress made by the Romans in road construction was actually lost for something like a 1000 years following the collapse of the empire. With that, you could argue that he "reinvented" what was lost. :-)

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GreyPoopon
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Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?

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