I thought it was a rather amusing analogy. Not FUD at all, really. But if you don't like my choice of targets, I might accept the label, but that I am rather a "Linux bigot of some worth", and also not arbitrarily a Linux bigot.
Of course, you could extend it to any bureaucracy or system that the public percieves as only one or a few individuals.
However, you'll notice that I was being rather generous to the mission control guys and the tech support guys for their work, something that seems to have been lost in the translation.
Also, the U.S. doesn't have royal titles for people; technically he couldn't even be named "Sir Linus" here, let alone "Lord Linus". And he doesn't really have an affiliation to Red Hat. And *please* don't confuse religion ("singing praises") with anything secular.
Support companies can indeed turn a profit, but it's harder when you aren't trying to rip everyone off with the zeal of a corporation like Microsoft....and if you've checked lately, Wall Street doesn't seem to like them much anymore, either, so we'll see what happens.
In conclusion, if you controlled that temper of yours, I'm sure you too could contribute useful critiques of all the Linux bigots on slashdot, yea, even Anonymously. But otherwise, you will merely look like a fool to many here, even the non-Linux bigots, and give your bretheren a bad name. --- pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Why does the mission control story make me think of tech support...
Thousands of trained men in pocket protectors and white shirts waiting to cooly dissect and fix the latest problem within seconds after the release of a new Microsoft Operating System, while Bill Gates and his lackeys get all the credit... --- pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Yes, you learn many powerful things in the documentation.
In this case, I think "easy to learn" and "easy to use" is the same thing here. It's just a keypress. Sure, if you don't know it, you'd have to look it up. But isn't that always true? Hey, here's a thought, Mr. Joe A. User: "If you don't know how to do it, maybe you should look it up."
I remember when the Joe Users of my time knew this fact...
In any case, if they (the Joe Users of the world) instead called tech support, and were told how to do it, then they'd know. If they forgot, well, there are always Post-It notes, or (God Forbid!) documentation.
And there are real applications which let you pick one bitdepth and one resolution as well, which many people seem to want to do.
Ewwey GUI stuff. So go have a Fig Newton. (bonus points if you catch the references...) --- pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
I would critique your post point-by-point, but you've already gotten a good one. Sorry, I was out partying with my friends, not learning more about the UNIX CLI.:)
Maybe I should explain my background here. I started out on Apple ][e's and C64's. All we had was text. I learned to hunt-and-peck, and later to touch-type. I learned BASIC programs, and I saw Windows-like "graphical interfaces" like GEOS: all the functionality of Windows 2.0, with about 5% of the system requirements or less.
Later, I learned DOS. Ever since I tried to use 'fdisk' to format a disk in the beginning, and had to rebuild my system from scratch, (which isn't that hard if you have a System Disk, a DOS Disk, and know how to read the manual that came with software back then...) I developed a strict policy towards reading *all* the documentation for any new DOS commands I encountered.:)
Probably around Windows 3.0 and DOS 6.0, I noticed that there was a trend towards including less and less documentation and instructions on how to actually *use* the software. Since I used the "on-line help" in programs a lot, and played around a lot, I didn't really mind, but I guarantee you a lot of other users who didn't have the time or the energy to do this were short-changed in the process, and now we have users who don't get a manual, and apparently don't have time to read what is on the screen right in front of them.
I don't profess to understand this, because I learned from an early age, in MS-DOS, that if you don't understand what's going on, one day your hard drive will be nuked, and it will be all your fault. That's the lesson that Microsoft taught me about computers, and I think it is a good lesson that when combined with appropriate documentation can be a powerful teaching tool.
So... When Windows '95 came out, this disturbing lack-of-documentation trend continued, making Windows resemble nothing more than a Mac with a useless vestigal DOS box that didn't do anything really helpful. Don't get me wrong, I loved DOS, but I found myself writing useful commands in Pascal that I later found out were standard UNIX commands... So I switched to Linux.
First, I learned about SunOS, because my friend Simon was in charge of the Suns we had. They were mystical, and complex, and powerful. But all you really have to tell someone who wants to learn is a few simple commands, most notably 'man'. Once you learn the documentation system, there's really no excuse not to learn everything else.
Now, at this point, all those "easy to use", "User Interface Zealots" who somehow think that MacOS 8.6 or the original release of Windows '98 were the first *real* Operating Systems ever are probably foaming at the mouth. "Documentation?", they say, "It should be easy to use!".
Well, of course it's easy to use. But sometimes you have to learn how. If you stuck me on a tricycle and gave me no directions, maybe I could learn how to ride it by myself. If you stuck me on a bicycle, and gave me no directions, I'd probably be clueless. But if you taught me how to use it, I'd be eternally grateful that now I have a fast, efficient, non-polluting form of transportation and exercise. And if it had multiple *speeds* that I learned how to use, well, I'd be in heaven.
Is learning how to use a complex tool in the first place so bad? Remember, you had to do this for any Operating System sometime.
Once, I didn't know how to type this:
LOAD "*",8,1
Or this:
[Control]-[Alt]-[Delete]
Or this:
[Control]-[Open-Apple]-[Delete]
(or [Control]-[Pound]-[Power] or whatever; Apple's keyboard commands are horribly inconsistent!)
For that matter, once I didn't know how to doubleclick.
Many users today do not know the difference between single-clicking, double-clicking, or right-clicking, and simply do them all until something "works". Just try to tell me they don't need some documentation! Maybe they never sat through the "Tutorial" that's buried somewhere in their Oh-So-Easy-To-Use GUI OS. It took me forever to find that thing under Windows, on a system *designed* for entry-level users! I had to look through their cryptic, badly-indexed help system, so it could tell me to find the CD and put it in! So the Tutorial could tell my Clueless User what a CD-ROM Drive was in the first place!!
Maybe a "Quick Reference" card might have been advisable in that situation. Or, God Forbid, a real Paper-And-Ink Printed Dead-Tree MANUAL!
So, yes, you can't get any work done until you've had someone walk you through using the thing for several hours. On *ANY* system, if you want to be able to use it decently.
And on a Mac or Windows, you might NEVER be able to do even moderately complex tasks. Or you might never know that it's possible, how you should go about doing it, what to do when "dragging things" doesn't meet your organizational needs, etc., etc. Usually the answer is, "find a shareware program that implements a tiny piece of useful functionality that's already built into UNIX but that I don't know about yet."
My classic example here is splitting and joining a file. In UNIX, there are a couple of powerful ways to do this. There's the split tool, which is made for this. But nothing split does couldn't be done by dd instead, possibly with some help from sh. Also, the regular, old cat command, which isn't much more powerful than the DOS type command except that it has wild-card support, and UNIX implements pipes properly, can be used to join files.
In DOS, there's one, cryptic command that is generally considered the right way to join files, no good way to split files, and the type command is castrated, and there's no indication of how you'd do any of this stuff in the first place, anyhow.
On the Macintosh, not only is there no notion of splitting and joining files, but there is no hint of even what a file really is besides a pretty picture, without being at least an intermediate Macintosh user. After that, the user is expected to find some third-party utility, and read the help and documentation on that program to figure out how to split a file. But if it's too confusing, don't worry, you can choose "Less Options" and all that clutter will go away. Just ask your friend who knows about computers...
Anyhow, you get the point, and I'll be happy to talk about these or other issues. But do you understand my perspective better, now?:) --- pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
I guess I meant "any terminal interface to UNIX is more intuitive". But I also could have said "a brick is more intuitive", or "a Chinese water torture device is more intuitive".
(I mean, really, who would ever devise a system where folders can't have folders in them? That's just broken. It's like running DOS 1.0 with multiple disks...)
In any case, 'intuitive' is what you make it, since it's all based on past experience anyhow.:) --- pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Well, any of the X configuration programs do this, but...
Please explain to me how [Ctrl]+[Alt]+[+/-] is not easy. What could be easier? Is [Ctrl]+[Alt]+[Del] particularly difficult for you under Windows? Or is [Ctrl]+[Alt]+[Backspace] hard to remember under X?
I agree that it has somewhat different effects than resizing the desktop under Windows or Macintosh, but it's still *incredibly* easy!
Also, I don't see how it's that easy on Windows/Mac. For the average user, it goes something like this (realize there are many inconsistent ways to do the same task, too):
"First, go to the Control Panel." "What's the Control Panel?" "Okay, click on the menu. (Start / Apple / Whatever)" "Okay." "Now go to Controls." "Okay." "Now go to Display. (preferences / monitor / whatever)" "Okay." "Now pick your resolution." "So is 800x600 bigger? How many colors do I need? Why would I want 32 colors instead of 256?" "*sigh*"
For a novice user, they have to learn *something* first, but navigating a maze of menus seems rather harder than pressing a key combination, at least to me... And remember, once you learn it, it's easy! You must have learned the wrong 'easy' way to do things first... --- pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
I think the UI Designers and the Hackers do a fair amount of self-selection, and the programs they create are popular in their own circles. I use mpg123; Joe A. User can use XMMS.
I change my 'display settings' by hitting CTRL+ALT+'+' and CTRL+ALT+'-'. And really, why would I want 8-bit color?:)
But seriously, it would be cool to have a box that could do this in GNOME or KDE, but I'd appreciate it if it didn't have to be integrated into X. Just being root and rewriting XF86Config while showing a pretty dialog to the user and saying "Now Restarting X..." would be good enough, IMO.
(don't listen to me, though, I'm one of those "hackers" that your design teacher warned you about!:)
I *do* appreciate it when programs support multiple ways to get help. For 'Joe A. User', it sounds like it should be "The Help Menu". (Command line? What's that?) However, it should *always* be "man prog". I don't *care* if there is alternate documentation available, there should always always ALWAYS be a man page for it, too.
Source and a configure script, or a package for the right platform, or both, is pretty standard these days. And your distro can probably find packages for anything that "Joe A. User" would ever find out about. ("for everything else, there's rpmfind.net"...:)
Would you consider "crashing" to impede ease-of-use? I wouldn't consider Netscape terribly easy to use on Linux because sometimes it just plain doesn't work. But even if Netscape gets a 5/10 on Linux, IE gets a 0/10 on Linux, and bringing down the whole OS on Windows is even more serious in my book... IE 3.0 under Wine is reasonable; it has some Wine-related glitches, and doesn't support some things because it's old... but it's fast. Probably like running Netscape 3.0 on Linux.:) --- pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
This was predicted in the last story, that someone would wonder about this, and there would be an "Ask Slashdot" on precisely this topic.
I'm amused.:)
However, NSI does suck, their policies are evil and their business practices absurd. So I'm all for it; vote with your money, vote with your feet! --- pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Linux *started* with at least the functionality of a late-80's user interface as soon as X compiled on it. I'm currently using Netscape with fvwm2 on Solaris, but it looks the same on Linux, and it hasn't changed any (for me!) for the past four years or so.
The interface looks at about the level of Windows 3.1, except that it has menus on the root window, four virtual desktops, (no pager; I access them through Ctrl+Arrow Keys) and all the features and misfeatures of X. (running graphical programs on other machines on the network, no integration of graphics into the kernel, etc.) Also, if I wanted it to look or act different, I could change it easily.:)
If I wanted an integrated desktop environment, there are several to choose from. Heck, if all I ever needed was a few Windows applications, and the interface was good enough for me, I could run those too, either with Wine or VMWare, or with some Windows-esque window manager, (qvwm, fvwm2-95, icewm, whatever) or even the Mac with mlvwm (Gack!).
My interface is so good, I use the command line all the time. I just wish I had a three-button mouse, 'cause having a dedicated button for pasting is really handy. For that matter, a 10-button mouse might be reccomended for die-hard Emacs users, or people who like chorded keyboards, but they aren't readily available, or popular.
I would love to have a Lego-based UI. That would be a pretty cool component-building interface, and Windows, GNOME and KDE all seem to be getting pretty component-happy. And as Logo was based on LISP, there are some Window Managers and programs that have similar groundings in their extension language. (sorry folks, no turtle. You could add it to The Gimp, but then it'd be in Scheme.:)
Windows 3.1 is an okay GUI, but an xterm is still much more intuitive. And a terminal still meets or exceeds the Win '95 shell. But if I want slow graphical eye-candy, I can always grab the latest 10MB themes for Enlightenment, run it with GNOME, install all the latest apps, run them all at once, take a screenshot, and gloat. And then change the theme, and watch the Windows users say "WTF??!!! How did you change that???!!!!"...
Of course, I'd rather get work done. I hate to break it to you, but that's what that "User Interface" is for: to get stuff done. --- pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
But why are we arguing about exactly what mythical creatures looked like? If I ever see them, I'll let you know, OK?:)
So, anyone want to make comparisons between Hercules, Jesus, or Bacchus? Half a god is better than none, that's what I always say.... --- pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Oh man, that would drive the market for blank tapes, at least. If you wanted to have a good copy of a show, and you kept using the same tape for everything and taping over it, that tape would wear out *really* fast.
I guess if I wanted to keep a copy of a show, I'd have to use more than one tape?:)
When it comes to technology, people seem to love and enjoy anything that seems useful or cool provided they don't have to think about it. I'd suggest the "Web-Zapper": a DOOM-like interface to web censoring; if you see something on the web you *never* want to see again, shoot it! (But be careful, if you don't use a powerful enough weapon, it might re-spawn!) Great for ads, Java pop-up windows, goatse.cx, (don't go there!) or just a tough day at work...:) --- pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Thank you, that actually clears things up a lot in my mind.
I guess the short answer to my question is, everything is unlawful, but if you do it on the Internet, it's probably illegal too, and then you're a malicious pirate, profiteering on the backs of others...
I suppose some other new technology will appear for people to hate and fear soon enough, and then we can all record our movies in peace once again.:)
(hey, if 20 people you know run Windows, does that mean you should too?:)
If I found another free Unix system I liked *much* better, sure, I'd switch in a heartbeat.
I used to run DOS and Windows 3.1, because I didn't know better, and there wasn't a widely-available free Unix clone that didn't *suck*; I wasn't about to switch to Win '95, since it was so much less powerful, dumbed down, less stable, and more annoying. Windows 3.1 couldn't exploit the power of even my P133. People stopped writing as much good stuff for DOS. Hello, Linux!
I tried installing BeOS briefly; it looked cool, but didn't support my (generic Trident TGUI9660) video card. I didn't want to read Slashdot in grayscale --> bye, bye, BeOS.
As for the *BSD's, I haven't really tried them, but it doesn't look that different. I'd have to install the GNU tools, of course, (I know them too well--I'm addicted!) and learn about the partitioning, but it sounds remarkably similar...
Many companies try to build a proprietary business plan with Linux at the core. It hasn't worked. The community has correctly taught Red Hat, Caldera, and Corel how it works, and all of these companies have been responsive and clueful in their co-operation. Kudos to Red Hat and Caldera, for weeding out some of that proprietary software. Thanks, Corel, for improving Wine so much! Any company that doesn't do this isn't going to be accepted by the community. They might find a niche market, but that's it. --- pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Yeah, I'm not really happy with that decision either, but apparently that's the law, this week.
Well, die-hard fans would probably still want the VHS tapes, but that's a very good point. To comply with the spirit of the law, I think you'd need to make sure that your users could only record programming that they already have access to, and there's no really good way to do that on the internet. (my idea was to use the zip-code on a credit-card billing address, and to only record local programming...)
I doubt it's great quality, but it could be. In this case, it can't be better than VHS, because it sounds like that's how they record shows in the first place. It doesn't matter, though, 'cause RealPlayer 7 doesn't do sound correctly on my Linux box. I need to reinstall it...:| --- pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
You're right about those first two points, but there's got to be a better way...
First, they *can't* "develop closed formats that cannot be copied and put onto the internet", without making them completely useless. If you can view it on your computer in any way, shape or form, you can copy it *back* onto your computer. Also, open formats will always be more popular because even though any closed format can be hacked, and open format will be more widely used, and therefore more widely distributed.
I remember when I had a CD-ROM drive that could not rip CD's. At the time this was difficult anyhow, because it would generate large files, in excess of 30MB... So of course I wanted to get samples, sound clips, songs, etc., from my CDs to put onto my computer. At first, I just used a patch cord to feed the output back into the line-in, or something similar, and I could record things that way. But once I got a new computer, I just bought a drive that could rip it directly.
The analogue, mp3 files, seem pretty popular. I haven't seen that many vqf files lately, and *no* abc, a2b, or whatever-they-are-called-this-week 31337-protected-music-filez, but I'm sure they've all been converted to mp3's.:)
As it stands, many people don't have the bandwidth to copy this stuff around over a network, but I'm sure lots of people know someone who could burn a CD for them (and soon a DVD) so protection by sheer density of information won't work for long, either.
I think the only real solution is to be economically competitive and attentive to the needs of the customers. If "Master of Puppets" was like $5, (and it should be--it's old!:) I'd pick it up to fill out my collection. Maybe I'd grab it at a pawn shop and rip it when I get my new hard drive. But until then, people are lazy, they'll just trade over the internet, or trade CD's of mp3's.
Notice that the music industry is scared shitless. NO ONE has said "hey, we could have an electronic 'Best of Metallica' collection on one disk, charge $40, sell a CD and a book, and make money", they've just ignored the technology. They're afraid, and they don't know what to do with it.
Remember, folks, mp3's don't skip, and cdparanoia is *excellent* at recovering damaged CD's. It would be far cheaper to buy a used CD, dump the entire CD to disk and burn it onto a blank CD than to buy a new copy; heck, destroy the original and sell the new copy that isn't scratched. I'm sure that's illegal, but I don't know why. Is there no warranty, no rights to the information you paid for? Even a one-user license? --- pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
I've seen it. Read the Super Bowl Party post in this thread and hash it out with that guy. I think "rebroadcasting" is a completely different animal from "personal use".
These people aren't rebroadcasting, they aren't broadcasting at all! They're making a copy of a show that you could tape available to you at a later time. And as long as that's *all* they're doing, (it doesn't look like it is, unfortunately) then this sort of thing should be legal. Banner ads have nothing to do with the contents of the TV show from those times; as long as that doesn't get changed, they're okay there.
The part to watch out for, IMO, is the "show you could tape" part; that needs to be verified. I'd wager that anything over the airwaves in their area is fair game, so this could be done by zip-code, credit card # billing address, or something similar.
However, even if it isn't legal now, it will be someday. I'm sure some clever company will eventually use the Internet, or their technology to implement a broadcast system, and someone will pay the licensing fees and undercut the competition. If people can make phone calls for free over the Internet, something like this is an obvious next target. --- pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
1+2) Okay. So according to you, I can't tape anything on TV and watch it later, unless there's a disclaimer? So why do VCRs have a "Record" button?
3) How is VCR+ different here than '1+2'? You're contradicting yourself... And why give numbers for programs I can't tape? I don't believe that.
4) Yeah, everyone wants to jump in, legislate, and slash and burn the new virgin territories. I heard that they're going to try to prosecute the creator of the ILOVEYOU virus (once they identify who did it...) under a law about misuse of a commerce device, or something. If e-mail is a "commerce device", then I'm Al Gore, and apparently the Spammers of the world are all friendly entrepeneurs or something. I want to see some laws designed for the future, with provisions for direct analogues in other media. (For instance, since copying is not the same as stealing, those laws shouldn't apply. Trade secrets and copyright are much closer, but "credit card fraud" or "mail fraud" are right out...) --- pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Also, that's why I don't agree with the banner ad argument: the signal in question is not being altered in any way! People are still watching the shows, and the advertisements...
But I've learned not to expect much from the government and the media conglomerates; I don't expect them to point out their own shortcomings either, seeing as how they control the news. *sigh* --- pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Hmm. I knew the Satellite companies had a big fight over this, and would pay certain stations money for licensing their shows to get the networks, but couldn't get local programming.
I don't know how this has changed, but as long as these shows are recorded off the air, I don't see a problem. Bringing the cable companies into it would probably be a bad idea, but if they don't provide an alternative, it will happen without them, regardless.
If the content providers don't leverage the technology, then someone will, and they will get left behind. --- pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
I don't buy the banner ad argument. I've heard it a lot, and it doesn't sound right. I don't know what people do with those banner ads, or why someone would get paid for it, but I do know that I don't have to download them to see the content.
Every web browser since the dawn of time either hasn't supported some images, or has had the option to disable them. Also, there are programs which will filter out ads in the first place. (I need to reinstall Junkbuster...)
And on this particular page, the ads are at the bottom to start with. What kind of advertising is that, when no one sees them? And if they're being paid per click-through then I *really* don't see a problem with it, as I never look at the ads.:)
So, since I don't buy the banner ad argument...
As long as they aren't actually selling the programs, aren't providing any services that anyone couldn't already get for free, and still see their programs with the commercials in them, I don't see why anyone should complain. Then it's just another issue about convenience and control. --- pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
So if I can convince a machine to do it, it's okay, but if a *person* pushes the button, suddenly they're doing something evil. Oh well, I'm just waiting for sentient robots or sane legislation, we'll see which one comes first.
One thing I would consider illegal is using this service to record programs you couldn't normally get, like if I recorded something from Cable when in fact I don't pay for Cable. They don't seem to check this sufficiently. But if this only offered local network programming, I can't see that it would be a problem. --- pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Please moderate the parent up. (only moderate my plea down after moderating the parent up, or ignoring my post and moderating nothing)
Why?
Because now that slashdot is censoring trolls and other fun-loving individuals, (try posting something with "First Post" in the subject line, too many capital letters, too much punctuation, etc., etc. and see what snide replies you get) a good way to combat this would be "intelligent trolling".
...and if you don't remember him, MEEPT is the king of intelligent trolling.
So please, let him post with a default score of 0 or 1 just so the funny ones have a chance of being moderated up more, and I can see his posts more often! (and look through his history, moderate the good posts up to +5!) --- pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Slashdot Mirror
*sigh*
...and if you've checked lately, Wall Street doesn't seem to like them much anymore, either, so we'll see what happens.
I thought it was a rather amusing analogy. Not FUD at all, really. But if you don't like my choice of targets, I might accept the label, but that I am rather a "Linux bigot of some worth", and also not arbitrarily a Linux bigot.
Of course, you could extend it to any bureaucracy or system that the public percieves as only one or a few individuals.
However, you'll notice that I was being rather generous to the mission control guys and the tech support guys for their work, something that seems to have been lost in the translation.
Also, the U.S. doesn't have royal titles for people; technically he couldn't even be named "Sir Linus" here, let alone "Lord Linus". And he doesn't really have an affiliation to Red Hat. And *please* don't confuse religion ("singing praises") with anything secular.
Support companies can indeed turn a profit, but it's harder when you aren't trying to rip everyone off with the zeal of a corporation like Microsoft.
In conclusion, if you controlled that temper of yours, I'm sure you too could contribute useful critiques of all the Linux bigots on slashdot, yea, even Anonymously. But otherwise, you will merely look like a fool to many here, even the non-Linux bigots, and give your bretheren a bad name.
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Why does the mission control story make me think of tech support...
Thousands of trained men in pocket protectors and white shirts waiting to cooly dissect and fix the latest problem within seconds after the release of a new Microsoft Operating System, while Bill Gates and his lackeys get all the credit...
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Yes, you learn many powerful things in the documentation.
In this case, I think "easy to learn" and "easy to use" is the same thing here. It's just a keypress. Sure, if you don't know it, you'd have to look it up. But isn't that always true? Hey, here's a thought, Mr. Joe A. User: "If you don't know how to do it, maybe you should look it up."
I remember when the Joe Users of my time knew this fact...
In any case, if they (the Joe Users of the world) instead called tech support, and were told how to do it, then they'd know. If they forgot, well, there are always Post-It notes, or (God Forbid!) documentation.
And there are real applications which let you pick one bitdepth and one resolution as well, which many people seem to want to do.
Ewwey GUI stuff. So go have a Fig Newton. (bonus points if you catch the references...)
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
I would critique your post point-by-point, but you've already gotten a good one. Sorry, I was out partying with my friends, not learning more about the UNIX CLI. :)
:)
:)
Maybe I should explain my background here. I started out on Apple ][e's and C64's. All we had was text. I learned to hunt-and-peck, and later to touch-type. I learned BASIC programs, and I saw Windows-like "graphical interfaces" like GEOS: all the functionality of Windows 2.0, with about 5% of the system requirements or less.
Later, I learned DOS. Ever since I tried to use 'fdisk' to format a disk in the beginning, and had to rebuild my system from scratch, (which isn't that hard if you have a System Disk, a DOS Disk, and know how to read the manual that came with software back then...) I developed a strict policy towards reading *all* the documentation for any new DOS commands I encountered.
Probably around Windows 3.0 and DOS 6.0, I noticed that there was a trend towards including less and less documentation and instructions on how to actually *use* the software. Since I used the "on-line help" in programs a lot, and played around a lot, I didn't really mind, but I guarantee you a lot of other users who didn't have the time or the energy to do this were short-changed in the process, and now we have users who don't get a manual, and apparently don't have time to read what is on the screen right in front of them.
I don't profess to understand this, because I learned from an early age, in MS-DOS, that if you don't understand what's going on, one day your hard drive will be nuked, and it will be all your fault. That's the lesson that Microsoft taught me about computers, and I think it is a good lesson that when combined with appropriate documentation can be a powerful teaching tool.
So... When Windows '95 came out, this disturbing lack-of-documentation trend continued, making Windows resemble nothing more than a Mac with a useless vestigal DOS box that didn't do anything really helpful. Don't get me wrong, I loved DOS, but I found myself writing useful commands in Pascal that I later found out were standard UNIX commands... So I switched to Linux.
First, I learned about SunOS, because my friend Simon was in charge of the Suns we had. They were mystical, and complex, and powerful. But all you really have to tell someone who wants to learn is a few simple commands, most notably 'man'. Once you learn the documentation system, there's really no excuse not to learn everything else.
Now, at this point, all those "easy to use", "User Interface Zealots" who somehow think that MacOS 8.6 or the original release of Windows '98 were the first *real* Operating Systems ever are probably foaming at the mouth. "Documentation?", they say, "It should be easy to use!".
Well, of course it's easy to use. But sometimes you have to learn how. If you stuck me on a tricycle and gave me no directions, maybe I could learn how to ride it by myself. If you stuck me on a bicycle, and gave me no directions, I'd probably be clueless. But if you taught me how to use it, I'd be eternally grateful that now I have a fast, efficient, non-polluting form of transportation and exercise. And if it had multiple *speeds* that I learned how to use, well, I'd be in heaven.
Is learning how to use a complex tool in the first place so bad? Remember, you had to do this for any Operating System sometime.
Once, I didn't know how to type this:
LOAD "*",8,1
Or this:
[Control]-[Alt]-[Delete]
Or this:
[Control]-[Open-Apple]-[Delete]
(or [Control]-[Pound]-[Power] or whatever; Apple's keyboard commands are horribly inconsistent!)
For that matter, once I didn't know how to doubleclick.
Many users today do not know the difference between single-clicking, double-clicking, or right-clicking, and simply do them all until something "works". Just try to tell me they don't need some documentation! Maybe they never sat through the "Tutorial" that's buried somewhere in their Oh-So-Easy-To-Use GUI OS. It took me forever to find that thing under Windows, on a system *designed* for entry-level users! I had to look through their cryptic, badly-indexed help system, so it could tell me to find the CD and put it in! So the Tutorial could tell my Clueless User what a CD-ROM Drive was in the first place!!
Maybe a "Quick Reference" card might have been advisable in that situation. Or, God Forbid, a real Paper-And-Ink Printed Dead-Tree MANUAL!
So, yes, you can't get any work done until you've had someone walk you through using the thing for several hours. On *ANY* system, if you want to be able to use it decently.
And on a Mac or Windows, you might NEVER be able to do even moderately complex tasks. Or you might never know that it's possible, how you should go about doing it, what to do when "dragging things" doesn't meet your organizational needs, etc., etc. Usually the answer is, "find a shareware program that implements a tiny piece of useful functionality that's already built into UNIX but that I don't know about yet."
My classic example here is splitting and joining a file. In UNIX, there are a couple of powerful ways to do this. There's the split tool, which is made for this. But nothing split does couldn't be done by dd instead, possibly with some help from sh. Also, the regular, old cat command, which isn't much more powerful than the DOS type command except that it has wild-card support, and UNIX implements pipes properly, can be used to join files.
In DOS, there's one, cryptic command that is generally considered the right way to join files, no good way to split files, and the type command is castrated, and there's no indication of how you'd do any of this stuff in the first place, anyhow.
On the Macintosh, not only is there no notion of splitting and joining files, but there is no hint of even what a file really is besides a pretty picture, without being at least an intermediate Macintosh user. After that, the user is expected to find some third-party utility, and read the help and documentation on that program to figure out how to split a file. But if it's too confusing, don't worry, you can choose "Less Options" and all that clutter will go away. Just ask your friend who knows about computers...
Anyhow, you get the point, and I'll be happy to talk about these or other issues. But do you understand my perspective better, now?
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
I guess I meant "any terminal interface to UNIX is more intuitive". But I also could have said "a brick is more intuitive", or "a Chinese water torture device is more intuitive".
:)
(I mean, really, who would ever devise a system where folders can't have folders in them? That's just broken. It's like running DOS 1.0 with multiple disks...)
In any case, 'intuitive' is what you make it, since it's all based on past experience anyhow.
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
I see two features and no misfeatures.
:)
Some people see two misfeatures and no features.
Some people don't like or don't understand X.
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Well, any of the X configuration programs do this, but...
Please explain to me how [Ctrl]+[Alt]+[+/-] is not easy. What could be easier? Is [Ctrl]+[Alt]+[Del] particularly difficult for you under Windows? Or is [Ctrl]+[Alt]+[Backspace] hard to remember under X?
I agree that it has somewhat different effects than resizing the desktop under Windows or Macintosh, but it's still *incredibly* easy!
Also, I don't see how it's that easy on Windows/Mac. For the average user, it goes something like this (realize there are many inconsistent ways to do the same task, too):
"First, go to the Control Panel."
"What's the Control Panel?"
"Okay, click on the menu. (Start / Apple / Whatever)"
"Okay."
"Now go to Controls."
"Okay."
"Now go to Display. (preferences / monitor / whatever)"
"Okay."
"Now pick your resolution."
"So is 800x600 bigger? How many colors do I need? Why would I want 32 colors instead of 256?"
"*sigh*"
For a novice user, they have to learn *something* first, but navigating a maze of menus seems rather harder than pressing a key combination, at least to me... And remember, once you learn it, it's easy! You must have learned the wrong 'easy' way to do things first...
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
I think the UI Designers and the Hackers do a fair amount of self-selection, and the programs they create are popular in their own circles. I use mpg123; Joe A. User can use XMMS.
:)
:)
:)
:)
I change my 'display settings' by hitting CTRL+ALT+'+' and CTRL+ALT+'-'. And really, why would I want 8-bit color?
But seriously, it would be cool to have a box that could do this in GNOME or KDE, but I'd appreciate it if it didn't have to be integrated into X. Just being root and rewriting XF86Config while showing a pretty dialog to the user and saying "Now Restarting X..." would be good enough, IMO.
(don't listen to me, though, I'm one of those "hackers" that your design teacher warned you about!
I *do* appreciate it when programs support multiple ways to get help. For 'Joe A. User', it sounds like it should be "The Help Menu". (Command line? What's that?) However, it should *always* be "man prog". I don't *care* if there is alternate documentation available, there should always always ALWAYS be a man page for it, too.
Source and a configure script, or a package for the right platform, or both, is pretty standard these days. And your distro can probably find packages for anything that "Joe A. User" would ever find out about. ("for everything else, there's rpmfind.net"...
Would you consider "crashing" to impede ease-of-use? I wouldn't consider Netscape terribly easy to use on Linux because sometimes it just plain doesn't work. But even if Netscape gets a 5/10 on Linux, IE gets a 0/10 on Linux, and bringing down the whole OS on Windows is even more serious in my book... IE 3.0 under Wine is reasonable; it has some Wine-related glitches, and doesn't support some things because it's old... but it's fast. Probably like running Netscape 3.0 on Linux.
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
This was predicted in the last story, that someone would wonder about this, and there would be an "Ask Slashdot" on precisely this topic.
:)
I'm amused.
However, NSI does suck, their policies are evil and their business practices absurd. So I'm all for it; vote with your money, vote with your feet!
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
I don't know why I reply to these things, but...
:)
:)
Linux *started* with at least the functionality of a late-80's user interface as soon as X compiled on it. I'm currently using Netscape with fvwm2 on Solaris, but it looks the same on Linux, and it hasn't changed any (for me!) for the past four years or so.
The interface looks at about the level of Windows 3.1, except that it has menus on the root window, four virtual desktops, (no pager; I access them through Ctrl+Arrow Keys) and all the features and misfeatures of X. (running graphical programs on other machines on the network, no integration of graphics into the kernel, etc.) Also, if I wanted it to look or act different, I could change it easily.
If I wanted an integrated desktop environment, there are several to choose from. Heck, if all I ever needed was a few Windows applications, and the interface was good enough for me, I could run those too, either with Wine or VMWare, or with some Windows-esque window manager, (qvwm, fvwm2-95, icewm, whatever) or even the Mac with mlvwm (Gack!).
My interface is so good, I use the command line all the time. I just wish I had a three-button mouse, 'cause having a dedicated button for pasting is really handy. For that matter, a 10-button mouse might be reccomended for die-hard Emacs users, or people who like chorded keyboards, but they aren't readily available, or popular.
I would love to have a Lego-based UI. That would be a pretty cool component-building interface, and Windows, GNOME and KDE all seem to be getting pretty component-happy. And as Logo was based on LISP, there are some Window Managers and programs that have similar groundings in their extension language. (sorry folks, no turtle. You could add it to The Gimp, but then it'd be in Scheme.
Windows 3.1 is an okay GUI, but an xterm is still much more intuitive. And a terminal still meets or exceeds the Win '95 shell. But if I want slow graphical eye-candy, I can always grab the latest 10MB themes for Enlightenment, run it with GNOME, install all the latest apps, run them all at once, take a screenshot, and gloat. And then change the theme, and watch the Windows users say "WTF??!!! How did you change that???!!!!"...
Of course, I'd rather get work done. I hate to break it to you, but that's what that "User Interface" is for: to get stuff done.
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
More like twelve, if you ask me.
:)
But why are we arguing about exactly what mythical creatures looked like? If I ever see them, I'll let you know, OK?
So, anyone want to make comparisons between Hercules, Jesus, or Bacchus? Half a god is better than none, that's what I always say....
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Oh man, that would drive the market for blank tapes, at least. If you wanted to have a good copy of a show, and you kept using the same tape for everything and taping over it, that tape would wear out *really* fast.
:)
:)
I guess if I wanted to keep a copy of a show, I'd have to use more than one tape?
When it comes to technology, people seem to love and enjoy anything that seems useful or cool provided they don't have to think about it. I'd suggest the "Web-Zapper": a DOOM-like interface to web censoring; if you see something on the web you *never* want to see again, shoot it! (But be careful, if you don't use a powerful enough weapon, it might re-spawn!) Great for ads, Java pop-up windows, goatse.cx, (don't go there!) or just a tough day at work...
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Thank you, that actually clears things up a lot in my mind.
I guess the short answer to my question is, everything is unlawful, but if you do it on the Internet, it's probably illegal too, and then you're a malicious pirate, profiteering on the backs of others...
I suppose some other new technology will appear for people to hate and fear soon enough, and then we can all record our movies in peace once again.
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
I don't care if people use Linux for business.
:)
That doesn't mean *I* have to do it.
(hey, if 20 people you know run Windows, does that mean you should too?
If I found another free Unix system I liked *much* better, sure, I'd switch in a heartbeat.
I used to run DOS and Windows 3.1, because I didn't know better, and there wasn't a widely-available free Unix clone that didn't *suck*; I wasn't about to switch to Win '95, since it was so much less powerful, dumbed down, less stable, and more annoying. Windows 3.1 couldn't exploit the power of even my P133. People stopped writing as much good stuff for DOS. Hello, Linux!
I tried installing BeOS briefly; it looked cool, but didn't support my (generic Trident TGUI9660) video card. I didn't want to read Slashdot in grayscale --> bye, bye, BeOS.
As for the *BSD's, I haven't really tried them, but it doesn't look that different. I'd have to install the GNU tools, of course, (I know them too well--I'm addicted!) and learn about the partitioning, but it sounds remarkably similar...
Many companies try to build a proprietary business plan with Linux at the core. It hasn't worked. The community has correctly taught Red Hat, Caldera, and Corel how it works, and all of these companies have been responsive and clueful in their co-operation. Kudos to Red Hat and Caldera, for weeding out some of that proprietary software. Thanks, Corel, for improving Wine so much! Any company that doesn't do this isn't going to be accepted by the community. They might find a niche market, but that's it.
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Yeah, I'm not really happy with that decision either, but apparently that's the law, this week.
:|
Well, die-hard fans would probably still want the VHS tapes, but that's a very good point. To comply with the spirit of the law, I think you'd need to make sure that your users could only record programming that they already have access to, and there's no really good way to do that on the internet. (my idea was to use the zip-code on a credit-card billing address, and to only record local programming...)
I doubt it's great quality, but it could be. In this case, it can't be better than VHS, because it sounds like that's how they record shows in the first place. It doesn't matter, though, 'cause RealPlayer 7 doesn't do sound correctly on my Linux box. I need to reinstall it...
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
You're right about those first two points, but there's got to be a better way...
:)
:) I'd pick it up to fill out my collection. Maybe I'd grab it at a pawn shop and rip it when I get my new hard drive. But until then, people are lazy, they'll just trade over the internet, or trade CD's of mp3's.
First, they *can't* "develop closed formats that cannot be copied and put onto the internet", without making them completely useless. If you can view it on your computer in any way, shape or form, you can copy it *back* onto your computer. Also, open formats will always be more popular because even though any closed format can be hacked, and open format will be more widely used, and therefore more widely distributed.
I remember when I had a CD-ROM drive that could not rip CD's. At the time this was difficult anyhow, because it would generate large files, in excess of 30MB... So of course I wanted to get samples, sound clips, songs, etc., from my CDs to put onto my computer. At first, I just used a patch cord to feed the output back into the line-in, or something similar, and I could record things that way. But once I got a new computer, I just bought a drive that could rip it directly.
The analogue, mp3 files, seem pretty popular. I haven't seen that many vqf files lately, and *no* abc, a2b, or whatever-they-are-called-this-week 31337-protected-music-filez, but I'm sure they've all been converted to mp3's.
As it stands, many people don't have the bandwidth to copy this stuff around over a network, but I'm sure lots of people know someone who could burn a CD for them (and soon a DVD) so protection by sheer density of information won't work for long, either.
I think the only real solution is to be economically competitive and attentive to the needs of the customers. If "Master of Puppets" was like $5, (and it should be--it's old!
Notice that the music industry is scared shitless. NO ONE has said "hey, we could have an electronic 'Best of Metallica' collection on one disk, charge $40, sell a CD and a book, and make money", they've just ignored the technology. They're afraid, and they don't know what to do with it.
Remember, folks, mp3's don't skip, and cdparanoia is *excellent* at recovering damaged CD's. It would be far cheaper to buy a used CD, dump the entire CD to disk and burn it onto a blank CD than to buy a new copy; heck, destroy the original and sell the new copy that isn't scratched. I'm sure that's illegal, but I don't know why. Is there no warranty, no rights to the information you paid for? Even a one-user license?
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
I've seen it. Read the Super Bowl Party post in this thread and hash it out with that guy. I think "rebroadcasting" is a completely different animal from "personal use".
These people aren't rebroadcasting, they aren't broadcasting at all! They're making a copy of a show that you could tape available to you at a later time. And as long as that's *all* they're doing, (it doesn't look like it is, unfortunately) then this sort of thing should be legal. Banner ads have nothing to do with the contents of the TV show from those times; as long as that doesn't get changed, they're okay there.
The part to watch out for, IMO, is the "show you could tape" part; that needs to be verified. I'd wager that anything over the airwaves in their area is fair game, so this could be done by zip-code, credit card # billing address, or something similar.
However, even if it isn't legal now, it will be someday. I'm sure some clever company will eventually use the Internet, or their technology to implement a broadcast system, and someone will pay the licensing fees and undercut the competition. If people can make phone calls for free over the Internet, something like this is an obvious next target.
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
1+2) Okay. So according to you, I can't tape anything on TV and watch it later, unless there's a disclaimer? So why do VCRs have a "Record" button?
3) How is VCR+ different here than '1+2'? You're contradicting yourself... And why give numbers for programs I can't tape? I don't believe that.
4) Yeah, everyone wants to jump in, legislate, and slash and burn the new virgin territories. I heard that they're going to try to prosecute the creator of the ILOVEYOU virus (once they identify who did it...) under a law about misuse of a commerce device, or something. If e-mail is a "commerce device", then I'm Al Gore, and apparently the Spammers of the world are all friendly entrepeneurs or something. I want to see some laws designed for the future, with provisions for direct analogues in other media. (For instance, since copying is not the same as stealing, those laws shouldn't apply. Trade secrets and copyright are much closer, but "credit card fraud" or "mail fraud" are right out...)
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
I completely agree.
Also, that's why I don't agree with the banner ad argument: the signal in question is not being altered in any way! People are still watching the shows, and the advertisements...
But I've learned not to expect much from the government and the media conglomerates; I don't expect them to point out their own shortcomings either, seeing as how they control the news. *sigh*
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Yay, MEEPT!
Anyone else want to talk about copyright issues and censorship, 'cause it's all applicable, and there hasn't been much "News For Nerds" lately.
Hey, who wants to post a copy of "The Matrix" on Slashdot? (or would it consider uuencoding ASCII-art, or too many capital letters?)
Sure, it's all old news, but that doesn't stop the media, much less Slashdot...
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Hmm. I knew the Satellite companies had a big fight over this, and would pay certain stations money for licensing their shows to get the networks, but couldn't get local programming.
I don't know how this has changed, but as long as these shows are recorded off the air, I don't see a problem. Bringing the cable companies into it would probably be a bad idea, but if they don't provide an alternative, it will happen without them, regardless.
If the content providers don't leverage the technology, then someone will, and they will get left behind.
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
I don't believe any commercials are inserted into the RealVideo file. What's the argument now?
:)
Also, if you can't find South Park on RealVideo, you haven't been paying attention.
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
I don't buy the banner ad argument. I've heard it a lot, and it doesn't sound right. I don't know what people do with those banner ads, or why someone would get paid for it, but I do know that I don't have to download them to see the content.
:)
Every web browser since the dawn of time either hasn't supported some images, or has had the option to disable them. Also, there are programs which will filter out ads in the first place. (I need to reinstall Junkbuster...)
And on this particular page, the ads are at the bottom to start with. What kind of advertising is that, when no one sees them? And if they're being paid per click-through then I *really* don't see a problem with it, as I never look at the ads.
So, since I don't buy the banner ad argument...
As long as they aren't actually selling the programs, aren't providing any services that anyone couldn't already get for free, and still see their programs with the commercials in them, I don't see why anyone should complain. Then it's just another issue about convenience and control.
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Hmm. Scary.
So if I can convince a machine to do it, it's okay, but if a *person* pushes the button, suddenly they're doing something evil. Oh well, I'm just waiting for sentient robots or sane legislation, we'll see which one comes first.
One thing I would consider illegal is using this service to record programs you couldn't normally get, like if I recorded something from Cable when in fact I don't pay for Cable. They don't seem to check this sufficiently. But if this only offered local network programming, I can't see that it would be a problem.
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
MEEPT is back! All Hail MEEPT!
Please moderate the parent up. (only moderate my plea down after moderating the parent up, or ignoring my post and moderating nothing)
Why?
Because now that slashdot is censoring trolls and other fun-loving individuals, (try posting something with "First Post" in the subject line, too many capital letters, too much punctuation, etc., etc. and see what snide replies you get) a good way to combat this would be "intelligent trolling".
...and if you don't remember him, MEEPT is the king of intelligent trolling.
So please, let him post with a default score of 0 or 1 just so the funny ones have a chance of being moderated up more, and I can see his posts more often! (and look through his history, moderate the good posts up to +5!)
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.