Firefox is an easy sell. Get a stop watch, load any website in IE, then load the same page in firefox. On average, its a few seconds faster. Then I show them adblock. That has worked for me every time so far.
For the longest time, I resisted Linux. I had used it briefly in 2002, found it too difficult for everyday use. Ever since then, I was under the impression that "Linux is only free if your time is worth nothing"
But what got me using Linux was Vista's crappyness.
I got my brothers using Open Office when one of them used an MS Office 2003 CD as an ashtray. "How do I download it?" "you go to the store, shell out a few hundred bucks, and buy a new copy, or download this free thing called open office" "get me the free thing"
VLC media player is really easy to get people using, it plays just about any kind of file, and loads faster than the big programs.
I find convincing people to switch their OS is nearly impossible, but getting them to use other FOSS programs is rather simple: just deleted the propriety stuff and install the FOSS equivalent on their machines.
That sounds like something I would like to took into.
I've been using the picaxe system for the last 2 years.
they take regular Pic chips, but instead of the user programming in assembly, (which is hell for non-programmers) They add an interpreter to the chips, allowing me to program in BASIC (which is hell for programmers, but oh-so-lovable for amatures like me)
its good for beginners, the chips are very forgiving. they may say 5V, but they can take 12 and not explode or burn out. but they are very limiting....what can you possibly do with only 14 variables?
I was thinking the same thing, but, to be honest, if my body's own waste heat could recharge my watch, my cellphone, and my laptop, I would gladly welcome our new matrix-creating robotic overlords.
I actually agree with you fully on that one. my mother went through chemo a few years ago, and if some little shit had erased her records part way through and caused her any harm, I would have been very upset/angry.
I was referring to a user of my fictional 'logic bomb' that would blast people with logic.
inject people with the logic to realize that whatever personal vendetta you might have with your company, it is not worth jeopardizing thousands of lives to 'get eve'. enough logic to allow law makers and law enforcement to see that weed should be decriminalized. Give people a ticket, make possession of weed the equivalent of speeding. (it was like that for a few months in my country, but then we caved due to pressures from your country)
so would everyone in the blast radius of this 'logic bomb' be hit with a blast of reason and common sense? would those affected begin acting rationally? maybe the courts would wake up and start letting the common people win for a change. i think we need more of these logic bombs.
I have personally met a person who had done this experiment.
At the time, is was a graduate student, working with University of Toronto's Steve Mann. (one of the world's 1st cyborgs) His setup consisted of LCD goggles, and video cameras attached to his head.
After 2 weeks of living life upside down, he said it became 'normal'. your brain flips it right-side up automatically.
he experimented with many other angles, giving each angle 2 weeks. He found that it was very easy to adjust to 90 degree angles. (1 week or less) 45 degree angles took longer to get used to, but his brain would eventually get it, but anything else, like 33 degrees, just made him feel very sick.
That was 6-7 years ago.
Re:We need this type of thing done in the classroo
on
Hand-Made Vacuum Tubes
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
i was kidding. and i forgot to type 'hand-made $500 volume knob"
i should have clicked preview:(
I know that tubes give a different sound. I used to work in a small recording studio, (well, specializing in making demo tapes, rather than professional recordings) One of the bass amps (can't remember brand/model, sorry) had a switch for either solid state or vacuum tube distortion (and it's no simulation or filter, there are real vacuum tubes in there)
A lot of analogue gear gives much better distortion than any new solid state stuff. a lot of old people find that digital clipping sounds terrible. (while I like it) When i'm recording drums, I often put the mics just a little too close, record things just a little too hot, and record to tape. I move the analogue recording to my hard drive later. It makes them sound so much bigger/fuller. With guitar, i find i could get away with recording clean electric guitar, then throw on some VST filters later to make it sound just like an effects pedal, but if they wanted that warm tube sound, no filter came close enough, I had to actually use real, physical gear.
vintage vacuum tubes are so hard to fund when they burn out, who would have though a DIY approach would be a viable option. cool!
Re:We need this type of thing done in the classroo
on
Hand-Made Vacuum Tubes
·
· Score: 0, Troll
yes, tubes might make a slight improvement to the sound comming out of your guitar amp, but if you want your equiptment to really sing, you absolutly must go with a $500 wooden volume knob.
2) anything that involves hanging around in the sky for long hours. (police patrol, weather research, space launch monitoring, customs patrol.) you left out the role with the most potential: advertising. a giant billboard in the sky could come in handy.
3) many things that involve getting a better view than you can get down here. (air traffic control, high altitude research, some types of cosmic ray research, military reconnaissance )
military reconnaissance? i don't know about you, but a giant, slow moving blimp isn't exactly stealthy. it may be silent, but when the enemy develops the technology required to LOOK UP, they've got you. until they perfect active camouflage, blimps in the military = bad idea.
4) the Skycat in particular, with it's self landing systems, would make a damn fine traveling medical clinic and disaster response vehicle for Canada, Russia, Australia and pretty much most of Africa.
that would be useful. disaster strikes at Alert Station, and the blimp arrives 2 weeks later, just in time to collect the frozen bodies.
5) I'm not sure how such a large and light vehicle can handle itself in the turbulence of a forest fire, but if they can be made to handle that environment they'd have a LOT more capacity than any chopper for water or fire retardants and a lot more flexibility in where to refill.
I would imagine the rising hot air would create a lot of unpredictable turbulence making this impractical. at best, it could dump a huge load of water beside the fire, possibly slowing its spread.
6)Avalanche control. You could get right up close to a potential avalanche site without making as much noise as a chopper, giving you more flexibility and control in triggering it.
In Canada, I've heard that we use rocket launchers to trigger an avalanche. I can't speak from experience, but blowing shit up with a rocket launcher sounds way more fun, not to mention cost effective, than having a launch crew + flight crew + landing crew operating a blimp for many hours as it slowly creeps towards the avalanche site, dodges mountain peaks, and somehow predicts rough, turbulent mountain winds.
How about building millions of giant blimps, painting them all silver, and flying them high in the sky, creating a giant sun umbrella to combat global warming?
Does this mean that 2008 will be the year for OSX on the desktop?
I love my Ubuntu, but it can't possibly go on for ever.
What will happen in 2017, after the release of Ubuntu 26.10: Zany Zebra. Z is as far as you can possibly go! after that, it's game over man, game over!
Apple can keep their game going on for much longer. Ubuntu may run out of letters, But apple won't run out of cats. I can't wait for OSX: Pardofelis marmorata. that is going to be a killer OS!
"What is known about science is backed by hard evidence - religion has no such standard."
what are you talking about....religion totally has a rock solid standard. 1) Religion is based on the Bible, and the Bible is infallible. 2) we know the bible is infallible because the bible says that it is infallible. and if you doubt this to be the case, see reason 1. 3) religion makes people feel warm and fuzzy.
you just can't argue that kind of logic.
How can a vast body of thoroughly tested, peer-reviewed knowledge supported by millions of facts possibly compare to that?
in all seriousness, it's shit like this that makes me feel lucky that I wasn't 'educated' in America.
Imagine what would happen if instead of locking content, media companies just made content that no one in their right mind would possibly want.
imagine if all new movies were either endless strings of sequels, or remakes of other movies you've already seen. imagine if all music was watered-down over-produced generic crap. imagine if the most popular video game system were to offer downloads of all their classic titles at great prices. imagine if the dominant operating system was so buggy, incompatible, and slow, that no one wanted to use it.
if, in some parallel universe, those four things were to somehow able to happen, all at the same time, no one would pirate anything!
i must say, I agree with that 100% what we call 'talent' is the end result of practice.
I am an artist, (abstract painter) and based on my recent critical and commercial success, I am led to be believe that I am a rather good artist.
people will often come up and say to me, "oh, I wish I had your talent..."
but, I grew up on a rough street, I couldn't go outside without being beaten senseless. My parents couldn't afford video games or computers, so I stayed inside and drew and painted all the time. But I didn't just do art to waste time, I was always striving to blow my self away with how good my latest piece was.
Now, when I'm at a show, and people praise my talent, I always think to my self, "of course I am a better painter than you are, I've practised 6 hours a day for the last 20 years! That's 43,848 hours of practice! after that much time, I had damn well better be a better painter than you are!" (of course, I can never actually say this, 'natural god given talent' is one of the illusions that keeps art so valuable.)
plus when I was at art school, my friends spent 90% of their time stoned off their ass. I spent my time actually working on stuff... its not hard to exceed when your competition sucks. and the only reason they suck is due to their lack of practice.
if this research leads to 'learning pills' hitting the market, i'm screwed!
it seems like all these companies have forgotten that their users are the source of their income.
keep treating us this way, and see what happens!
I have always found services like netflix to be unnecessary. I use a little-known service called bit-torrent to get my movies. the selection is good and the price is great. best of all, no region restrictions, and no DRM! everyone should use it!
how about 5 year copyright, where an unlimited number of extentions can be purchased, and the price is determined using some simple exponential growth.
after your initial 5 year copyright term expires, you can renew it for anther year for $1 the next extension will only cost you $2 in 15 years, your extension will set you back $512, which is still quite affordable. by year 20, your extension will set you back $16,384 after 25 years, your extension cost is up to $524,288.
I think this method would be quite fair. for the independent artist, they can easily afford a few extensions if they are still making money off their work, but once the cost of maintaining copyright exceeds the profits generated, they can simple stop renewing.
and the big media companies can keep on purchasing extensions for all their pop as long as they want, only it will cost them big time.
and the money generated from this scheme will all go to support independent artists.
i would like to point out that I am an independent artist. honestly, after 5 years, why should i expect to profit from my work? how does that encourage me to make new work?
I'm waiting for the day when Microsoft begins to wither and die under its own weight, and at the last minute, pulls an IBM, investing heavily in OSS to keep itself going more cost effectively.
Then MS will suddenly become a much loved company around here, 'cause 'round these parts, supporting OSS =/. love
Then, in a need to fill the void left by Microsoft, Google will suddenly become the big bad guy. All of us on Slashdot will be praising Microsoft and hoping they can take down the big evil google.
or we could agree that both of these companies fulfil a certain niche that the other company cannot, and we need them both. one company provides employment for countless nerds due to its buggy software, while the other company helps those nerds find things, (like porn)
They are not in direct competition with each other.
My laptop came with Vista pre-installed (it still has the 'Windows Vista tm' sticker on it) after a week of absolute hell, I made the switch to Linux. its now a dual boot WinXPpro / Ubuntu machine.
A co-worker bought an LG laptop, couldn't stand vista, tried to install XP, but was unable to find any XP drivers, so they switched to red-had.
My brother's e-machine pc crapped out on him, and he bought a new dual-core HP laptop from "best"-buy, which sadly, only sells vista PCs, and he is constantly complaining about the slow performance, "Vista is slower than XP on my 800mhz computer..." so I'm searching the web for XP drivers for his hardware.
another co-worker saw my frustrations with vista, and is saving up for a mac-book pro to avoid vista entirely.
I'm sure this is only a minority, because as we all know, individual antidotes mean next to nothing for measuring overall trends, but every single person I know who has encountered vista has hated it, and quickly gotten rid of it.
it would be nice of google/yahoo would release stats on what the Operating Systems their users are running.
if we want REALLY accurate results, how about having slashdot release this info...i'm sure the slashdot statistics would be a fair and accurate representation of each OS's market share in the general market.
I really hate to spoil your fun, but I actually do see a lot of stray cats roaming the streets in Korea. I actually see more of them here than I did in Toronto. but you never see stray dogs here. (I almost typed 'naver' right there.)
Slashdot Mirror
Firefox is an easy sell. Get a stop watch, load any website in IE, then load the same page in firefox. On average, its a few seconds faster. Then I show them adblock. That has worked for me every time so far.
For the longest time, I resisted Linux. I had used it briefly in 2002, found it too difficult for everyday use.
Ever since then, I was under the impression that "Linux is only free if your time is worth nothing"
But what got me using Linux was Vista's crappyness.
I got my brothers using Open Office when one of them used an MS Office 2003 CD as an ashtray.
"How do I download it?"
"you go to the store, shell out a few hundred bucks, and buy a new copy, or download this free thing called open office"
"get me the free thing"
VLC media player is really easy to get people using, it plays just about any kind of file, and loads faster than the big programs.
I find convincing people to switch their OS is nearly impossible, but getting them to use other FOSS programs is rather simple: just deleted the propriety stuff and install the FOSS equivalent on their machines.
Thank you.
That sounds like something I would like to took into.
I've been using the picaxe system for the last 2 years.
they take regular Pic chips, but instead of the user programming in assembly, (which is hell for non-programmers) They add an interpreter to the chips, allowing me to program in BASIC (which is hell for programmers, but oh-so-lovable for amatures like me)
its good for beginners, the chips are very forgiving. they may say 5V, but they can take 12 and not explode or burn out. but they are very limiting....what can you possibly do with only 14 variables?
I was thinking the same thing, but, to be honest, if my body's own waste heat could recharge my watch, my cellphone, and my laptop, I would gladly welcome our new matrix-creating robotic overlords.
I actually agree with you fully on that one.
my mother went through chemo a few years ago, and if some little shit had erased her records part way through and caused her any harm, I would have been very upset/angry.
I was referring to a user of my fictional 'logic bomb' that would blast people with logic.
inject people with the logic to realize that whatever personal vendetta you might have with your company, it is not worth jeopardizing thousands of lives to 'get eve'.
enough logic to allow law makers and law enforcement to see that weed should be decriminalized. Give people a ticket, make possession of weed the equivalent of speeding. (it was like that for a few months in my country, but then we caved due to pressures from your country)
but if politicians think XOR, or NAND....what then?
so would everyone in the blast radius of this 'logic bomb' be hit with a blast of reason and common sense?
would those affected begin acting rationally?
maybe the courts would wake up and start letting the common people win for a change.
i think we need more of these logic bombs.
live long and prosper, logic bomber...
I have personally met a person who had done this experiment.
At the time, is was a graduate student, working with University of Toronto's Steve Mann. (one of the world's 1st cyborgs) His setup consisted of LCD goggles, and video cameras attached to his head.
After 2 weeks of living life upside down, he said it became 'normal'. your brain flips it right-side up automatically.
he experimented with many other angles, giving each angle 2 weeks.
He found that it was very easy to adjust to 90 degree angles. (1 week or less) 45 degree angles took longer to get used to, but his brain would eventually get it, but anything else, like 33 degrees, just made him feel very sick.
That was 6-7 years ago.
i was kidding. and i forgot to type 'hand-made $500 volume knob"
:(
i should have clicked preview
I know that tubes give a different sound. I used to work in a small recording studio, (well, specializing in making demo tapes, rather than professional recordings) One of the bass amps (can't remember brand/model, sorry) had a switch for either solid state or vacuum tube distortion (and it's no simulation or filter, there are real vacuum tubes in there)
A lot of analogue gear gives much better distortion than any new solid state stuff. a lot of old people find that digital clipping sounds terrible. (while I like it)
When i'm recording drums, I often put the mics just a little too close, record things just a little too hot, and record to tape. I move the analogue recording to my hard drive later. It makes them sound so much bigger/fuller.
With guitar, i find i could get away with recording clean electric guitar, then throw on some VST filters later to make it sound just like an effects pedal, but if they wanted that warm tube sound, no filter came close enough, I had to actually use real, physical gear.
vintage vacuum tubes are so hard to fund when they burn out, who would have though a DIY approach would be a viable option. cool!
yes, tubes might make a slight improvement to the sound comming out of your guitar amp, but if you want your equiptment to really sing, you absolutly must go with a $500 wooden volume knob.
oh, but you are so very wrong.
sony never put a rootkit on a CD.
Sony put a rootkit on some shiny polycarbonate disks that just-so-happened to 'resemble' a CD, but by definition, it was not a 'CD'
has anyone considered that this whole 'vista' thing might be a brilliant move by microsoft to break its own monopoly.
when Linux and *shudders* OSX gain a higher market share, M$ won't be the monopoly they once were, and they can get out of paying all those fines.
i'm sorry. I just typed 'brilliant move by microsoft' and almost kept a straight face. someone throw a chair at me.
a ring can be very practical if it provieds you with something like +10% mana or fire resistance.
there is also a company out there (sorry, I can't remember the name) that will take the cremated ashes of a relative and turn them into a diamond.
Nothing says 'I love you' like diamonified dead relatives!
2) anything that involves hanging around in the sky for long hours. (police patrol, weather research, space launch monitoring, customs patrol.)
you left out the role with the most potential: advertising. a giant billboard in the sky could come in handy.
3) many things that involve getting a better view than you can get down here. (air traffic control, high altitude research, some types of cosmic ray research, military reconnaissance )
military reconnaissance? i don't know about you, but a giant, slow moving blimp isn't exactly stealthy. it may be silent, but when the enemy develops the technology required to LOOK UP, they've got you. until they perfect active camouflage, blimps in the military = bad idea.
4) the Skycat in particular, with it's self landing systems, would make a damn fine traveling medical clinic and disaster response vehicle for Canada, Russia, Australia and pretty much most of Africa.
that would be useful. disaster strikes at Alert Station, and the blimp arrives 2 weeks later, just in time to collect the frozen bodies.
5) I'm not sure how such a large and light vehicle can handle itself in the turbulence of a forest fire, but if they can be made to handle that environment they'd have a LOT more capacity than any chopper for water or fire retardants and a lot more flexibility in where to refill.
I would imagine the rising hot air would create a lot of unpredictable turbulence making this impractical. at best, it could dump a huge load of water beside the fire, possibly slowing its spread.
6)Avalanche control. You could get right up close to a potential avalanche site without making as much noise as a chopper, giving you more flexibility and control in triggering it.
In Canada, I've heard that we use rocket launchers to trigger an avalanche. I can't speak from experience, but blowing shit up with a rocket launcher sounds way more fun, not to mention cost effective, than having a launch crew + flight crew + landing crew operating a blimp for many hours as it slowly creeps towards the avalanche site, dodges mountain peaks, and somehow predicts rough, turbulent mountain winds.
How about building millions of giant blimps, painting them all silver, and flying them high in the sky, creating a giant sun umbrella to combat global warming?
Does this mean that 2008 will be the year for OSX on the desktop?
I love my Ubuntu, but it can't possibly go on for ever.
What will happen in 2017, after the release of Ubuntu 26.10: Zany Zebra.
Z is as far as you can possibly go!
after that, it's game over man, game over!
Apple can keep their game going on for much longer. Ubuntu may run out of letters, But apple won't run out of cats. I can't wait for OSX: Pardofelis marmorata. that is going to be a killer OS!
"What is known about science is backed by hard evidence - religion has no such standard."
what are you talking about....religion totally has a rock solid standard.
1) Religion is based on the Bible, and the Bible is infallible.
2) we know the bible is infallible because the bible says that it is infallible. and if you doubt this to be the case, see reason 1.
3) religion makes people feel warm and fuzzy.
you just can't argue that kind of logic.
How can a vast body of thoroughly tested, peer-reviewed knowledge supported by millions of facts possibly compare to that?
in all seriousness, it's shit like this that makes me feel lucky that I wasn't 'educated' in America.
I have a proposal for an alternative to DRM.
Imagine what would happen if instead of locking content, media companies just made content that no one in their right mind would possibly want.
imagine if all new movies were either endless strings of sequels, or remakes of other movies you've already seen.
imagine if all music was watered-down over-produced generic crap.
imagine if the most popular video game system were to offer downloads of all their classic titles at great prices.
imagine if the dominant operating system was so buggy, incompatible, and slow, that no one wanted to use it.
if, in some parallel universe, those four things were to somehow able to happen, all at the same time, no one would pirate anything!
sadly, we may never see such a world...
i must say, I agree with that 100% what we call 'talent' is the end result of practice.
I am an artist, (abstract painter) and based on my recent critical and commercial success, I am led to be believe that I am a rather good artist.
people will often come up and say to me, "oh, I wish I had your talent..."
but, I grew up on a rough street, I couldn't go outside without being beaten senseless. My parents couldn't afford video games or computers, so I stayed inside and drew and painted all the time. But I didn't just do art to waste time, I was always striving to blow my self away with how good my latest piece was.
Now, when I'm at a show, and people praise my talent, I always think to my self, "of course I am a better painter than you are, I've practised 6 hours a day for the last 20 years! That's 43,848 hours of practice! after that much time, I had damn well better be a better painter than you are!" (of course, I can never actually say this, 'natural god given talent' is one of the illusions that keeps art so valuable.)
plus when I was at art school, my friends spent 90% of their time stoned off their ass. I spent my time actually working on stuff... its not hard to exceed when your competition sucks. and the only reason they suck is due to their lack of practice.
if this research leads to 'learning pills' hitting the market, i'm screwed!
it seems like all these companies have forgotten that their users are the source of their income.
keep treating us this way, and see what happens!
I have always found services like netflix to be unnecessary. I use a little-known service called bit-torrent to get my movies. the selection is good and the price is great. best of all, no region restrictions, and no DRM! everyone should use it!
how about 5 year copyright, where an unlimited number of extentions can be purchased, and the price is determined using some simple exponential growth.
after your initial 5 year copyright term expires, you can renew it for anther year for $1
the next extension will only cost you $2
in 15 years, your extension will set you back $512, which is still quite affordable.
by year 20, your extension will set you back $16,384
after 25 years, your extension cost is up to $524,288.
I think this method would be quite fair. for the independent artist, they can easily afford a few extensions if they are still making money off their work, but once the cost of maintaining copyright exceeds the profits generated, they can simple stop renewing.
and the big media companies can keep on purchasing extensions for all their pop as long as they want, only it will cost them big time.
and the money generated from this scheme will all go to support independent artists.
i would like to point out that I am an independent artist. honestly, after 5 years, why should i expect to profit from my work? how does that encourage me to make new work?
I'm waiting for the day when Microsoft begins to wither and die under its own weight, and at the last minute, pulls an IBM, investing heavily in OSS to keep itself going more cost effectively.
/. love
Then MS will suddenly become a much loved company around here, 'cause 'round these parts, supporting OSS =
Then, in a need to fill the void left by Microsoft, Google will suddenly become the big bad guy. All of us on Slashdot will be praising Microsoft and hoping they can take down the big evil google.
or we could agree that both of these companies fulfil a certain niche that the other company cannot, and we need them both. one company provides employment for countless nerds due to its buggy software, while the other company helps those nerds find things, (like porn)
They are not in direct competition with each other.
i would like to see these statistics as well.
My laptop came with Vista pre-installed (it still has the 'Windows Vista tm' sticker on it) after a week of absolute hell, I made the switch to Linux. its now a dual boot WinXPpro / Ubuntu machine.
A co-worker bought an LG laptop, couldn't stand vista, tried to install XP, but was unable to find any XP drivers, so they switched to red-had.
My brother's e-machine pc crapped out on him, and he bought a new dual-core HP laptop from "best"-buy, which sadly, only sells vista PCs, and he is constantly complaining about the slow performance, "Vista is slower than XP on my 800mhz computer..." so I'm searching the web for XP drivers for his hardware.
another co-worker saw my frustrations with vista, and is saving up for a mac-book pro to avoid vista entirely.
I'm sure this is only a minority, because as we all know, individual antidotes mean next to nothing for measuring overall trends, but every single person I know who has encountered vista has hated it, and quickly gotten rid of it.
it would be nice of google/yahoo would release stats on what the Operating Systems their users are running.
if we want REALLY accurate results, how about having slashdot release this info...i'm sure the slashdot statistics would be a fair and accurate representation of each OS's market share in the general market.
"I do love how beautiful the code looks no matter how convoluted you try and write it."
if code aesthetics are really important to you, they you really must go with basic.
10 CLS
20 PRINT "Hello world"
30 END
Look at the beautiful symmetry!
Look at the even row of numbers in one column, and how they prop up the commands sitting beside them.
I must say, BASIC code is truly an example of sublime beauty.
I pity the fool who codes in Python.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=aeQ1wjK663M&feature=related
this one is my favorite.
top chef.
I really hate to spoil your fun, but I actually do see a lot of stray cats roaming the streets in Korea. I actually see more of them here than I did in Toronto. but you never see stray dogs here. (I almost typed 'naver' right there.)