Wait, remind me why Outlook is bad. It's an incredibly slick product and hasn't caused me any real problems. Or do people just like to whine and enjoy complaining?
If by slick you mean only superficially suitable for the one intended intended use it has, then yes; Outlook is really slick.
Instead of concentrating as much money as possible into 1% of the population, the same money could be in use by a much much larger middle class.
That's also where you will find the ones to pay for socialism. The poor can not pay for the aid they receive because they are poor. The rich avoid paying anywhere near a decent amount compared to their income or assets, even if it means moving to a different country. So the middle class is what supports a socialist system.
And if you look at the countries with the happiest populations, you'll notice they have the largest proportion of middle class, and are welfare-states.
Socialism isn't a big on/off switch, it's a sliding scale of attempting to rectify the injustice of the powerful (rich) exploiting the powerless (poor).
That's because like what happened to allofmp3.com, the US will exert tremendous diplomatic pressure to make such a company's existence as difficult as possible, even if they happen to be on the right side of the law.
I have been on the receiving end of that and I can tell you it is a terrible teaching method. I ended up quitting the class and taking the final exam separately, where I got top marks on my own. Certain few types of people may react well to that method, but everyone else gets to suffer.
How about avoiding a method that has such a high chance of harming students and instead let the motivated ones get on with learning.
at most, Apple is now in the same position, not worse.
Except the part where the app store will not allow java.. where is the app store for windows again?
(and yes, you can release apps outside the app store. For as long as they will allow it. Good luck convincing people to install when the app store becomes the only place people look for software for macs)
I don't disagree with the rest of your post, but I think you are falling for the propaganda when you mention the "far left"..
When was the last time you saw the word socialism used in a positive context in the US?
And socialism is only moderately leftist.
In order to be moderate in the grand scheme of things you have to stand way to the left of the mainstream US polititics.
I think that (at least in the case of counterstrike) you are missing the point..
It's no more a weapons simulator than Arnold was an instructor in the proper use of a minigun.
The fun is obviously playing the game within it's ruleset.
Maybe you also beleive there is no fun in chess because in real life enemy castles can't relocate straight into your territory and kill your king while he's out for an evening stroll.
Actually, studies (which i can't be bothered tracking down right now) have shown white text on black on a screen isn't terribly easy on the eyes either.
If I recall, the best was black text and less contrast, like 10-20% gray.
However, It is a real thing, and from what I understand is debilitating, humiliating
Oh please. It's only humiliating if she think's being aroused humiliates her. Whose fault is that?
And if it's all she can think about to the point of being debilitating, perhaps she should change jobs to something that involves sex or sextoys and get filthy rich.
It's not a problem unless she wants it to be.
Has it occured to you that your cat is trying to communicate with you?
It's not like the cat can sit up and say "Listen, that water is too warm and disgusting and making me drink it is making me very unhappy."
Instead of treating it as a fight for dominance between you and the cat, perhaps you should view it as an honest communication attempt and fix the water situation. It is obviously important enough to the cat to to have complained in the only way she can think of, non-stop, for years.
... the defeatist attitude that Linux is "not ready for the desktop" despite the fact that, at this point, it's easier to install than all competitors' products and easier to admin, maintain and upgrade than all competitors' products,
You hit the nail on the head. What linux (and indeed most of OSS) desperately needs in that lineup is "easier to use".
And the problem is systemic and self-enforcing. Because the culture of programmer-knows-best feels good to the devs of any project, attempts to improve usability (when not part of an organization that will enforce it) are ignored or actively rejected with nice friendly sentiments of "Shut up, make your own if you think you can do better." and similar that really helps motivate people.
Desktop linux (excluding being used as typewriter) is like having a metallurgically perfect hammer, but with the head rotated 90 degrees back and to the side. If you want people to use that hammer is it better to: a) redesign the damn head, or b) tell them to develop the hammer-ninjutsu required to use it because it works just fine for you and metallurgist friends?
Actually text-based or otherwise less "ad-looking" ads are proven to be more effective in every way, but a lot of people with money still seem to think it is completely obvious that the louder their ad screams the more it will sell their product/service. Just to not break with tradition and car analogies; Kind of like how another group of people think putting as many huge subwoofers as possible into their cars obviously makes their music system better.
(Most people should know this but on the off chance someone doesn't and just happens to see this..)
It is extremely simple to do automated boundary-detecting screenshots with various plugins and/or tools. Just do yourself a favour and accept that if someone wishes to keep an image that is displayed on their screen, they will.
Electrostatic speakers have been delivering exceptionally detailed and neutral sound in a convenient form factor for decades but have been completely ignored by the public since they don't meet their criteria of being big and with a heavy bias towards the low frequencies.
Or perhaps the ridiculously high pricing is the problem with electrostatic ones...
(And before someone starts comparing these to audiophile-priced standard speakers, get-me-them-magical-cables audiophiles don't count as general public.)
I think you've missed the whole point of PDFs. They are meant to preserve formatting.
People use PDFs for the same reason they don't use HTML or plain text for said documents, and vice versa.
Now if the documents you want are perfectly readable as plain text you should blame the source for using an unsuitable format, rather than hating the format for doing what it is supposed to do.
Well I have read what you both refer to and I can say that aside from deeper and more beleivable characters and stories in general, Shirow has a distinctly better explanation for his sentient program than Heinlein's handwaving of "it just had so many parts fitted to it". And more interestingly philosophical to boot.
And attacking someone with "you do not understand books with no pictures" shows that a) you have no appreciation of visual arts and b) you have no valid arguments yet want to find some way of attacking someone who does.
The methods used to combat software piracy seem fairly mild compared to the methods used to combat most other types of crime.
And you don't think that could have something to do with copyright infringement not usually being a crime? Unless you mean actual piracy, which often involves eyepatches and speech impediments..
As we all know crazy people attacking cops are the only ones being Tasered. The police wouldn't dream of Tasing defiant 6 year olds in elementary schools, Tasing students performing passive resistance in a university library or Tasing people refusing a speeding-ticket.
(Anyone actually beleiving the above needs a serious reality-check)
How convenient to compare the lowest resolution that the oldest Amiga (mid 80's) could generate with "Any PC with VGA graphics (..) since mid-1990s". Maybe we can compare 3d graphics quality of a virge s3 card from 10 years ago ( set to lowest resolution ) to any current graphics card of today?
Slashdot Mirror
You can.. And if you get something like the Samsung B2710 you get shock and waterproofing thrown in for good measure.
Wait, remind me why Outlook is bad. It's an incredibly slick product and hasn't caused me any real problems. Or do people just like to whine and enjoy complaining?
If by slick you mean only superficially suitable for the one intended intended use it has, then yes; Outlook is really slick.
Instead of concentrating as much money as possible into 1% of the population, the same money could be in use by a much much larger middle class.
That's also where you will find the ones to pay for socialism. The poor can not pay for the aid they receive because they are poor. The rich avoid paying anywhere near a decent amount compared to their income or assets, even if it means moving to a different country. So the middle class is what supports a socialist system. And if you look at the countries with the happiest populations, you'll notice they have the largest proportion of middle class, and are welfare-states.
Socialism isn't a big on/off switch, it's a sliding scale of attempting to rectify the injustice of the powerful (rich) exploiting the powerless (poor).
That's because like what happened to allofmp3.com, the US will exert tremendous diplomatic pressure to make such a company's existence as difficult as possible, even if they happen to be on the right side of the law.
I have been on the receiving end of that and I can tell you it is a terrible teaching method. I ended up quitting the class and taking the final exam separately, where I got top marks on my own. Certain few types of people may react well to that method, but everyone else gets to suffer.
How about avoiding a method that has such a high chance of harming students and instead let the motivated ones get on with learning.
Unrealistic prices for inferior and malware-laiden shareware, as compared to free and trustworthy open source alternatives.
Clippy
Metal Gear + every single sequel across many many platforms. (except the fake No.2 on NES)
at most, Apple is now in the same position, not worse.
Except the part where the app store will not allow java.. where is the app store for windows again?
(and yes, you can release apps outside the app store. For as long as they will allow it. Good luck convincing people to install when the app store becomes the only place people look for software for macs)
And since this is /. - what about OSS tools?
http://developer.skolelinux.no/info/studentgrupper/2005-hig-stopmotion/
Available from a ubuntu/debian/etc repository near you.
I don't disagree with the rest of your post, but I think you are falling for the propaganda when you mention the "far left"..
When was the last time you saw the word socialism used in a positive context in the US? And socialism is only moderately leftist.
In order to be moderate in the grand scheme of things you have to stand way to the left of the mainstream US polititics.
I think that (at least in the case of counterstrike) you are missing the point.. It's no more a weapons simulator than Arnold was an instructor in the proper use of a minigun.
The fun is obviously playing the game within it's ruleset.
Maybe you also beleive there is no fun in chess because in real life enemy castles can't relocate straight into your territory and kill your king while he's out for an evening stroll.
Actually, studies (which i can't be bothered tracking down right now) have shown white text on black on a screen isn't terribly easy on the eyes either. If I recall, the best was black text and less contrast, like 10-20% gray.
However, It is a real thing, and from what I understand is debilitating, humiliating
Oh please. It's only humiliating if she think's being aroused humiliates her. Whose fault is that? And if it's all she can think about to the point of being debilitating, perhaps she should change jobs to something that involves sex or sextoys and get filthy rich. It's not a problem unless she wants it to be.
Has it occured to you that your cat is trying to communicate with you?
It's not like the cat can sit up and say "Listen, that water is too warm and disgusting and making me drink it is making me very unhappy."
Instead of treating it as a fight for dominance between you and the cat, perhaps you should view it as an honest communication attempt and fix the water situation. It is obviously important enough to the cat to to have complained in the only way she can think of, non-stop, for years.
Actually, it isn't *that* difficult to get a PhD in psychology. Most people just don't bother.
... the defeatist attitude that Linux is "not ready for the desktop" despite the fact that, at this point, it's easier to install than all competitors' products and easier to admin, maintain and upgrade than all competitors' products,
You hit the nail on the head. What linux (and indeed most of OSS) desperately needs in that lineup is "easier to use".
And the problem is systemic and self-enforcing. Because the culture of programmer-knows-best feels good to the devs of any project, attempts to improve usability (when not part of an organization that will enforce it) are ignored or actively rejected with nice friendly sentiments of "Shut up, make your own if you think you can do better." and similar that really helps motivate people.
Desktop linux (excluding being used as typewriter) is like having a metallurgically perfect hammer, but with the head rotated 90 degrees back and to the side. If you want people to use that hammer is it better to:
a) redesign the damn head, or b) tell them to develop the hammer-ninjutsu required to use it because it works just fine for you and metallurgist friends?
Actually text-based or otherwise less "ad-looking" ads are proven to be more effective in every way, but a lot of people with money still seem to think it is completely obvious that the louder their ad screams the more it will sell their product/service.
Just to not break with tradition and car analogies; Kind of like how another group of people think putting as many huge subwoofers as possible into their cars obviously makes their music system better.
If someone doing that is reading this:
(Most people should know this but on the off chance someone doesn't and just happens to see this..)
It is extremely simple to do automated boundary-detecting screenshots with various plugins and/or tools.
Just do yourself a favour and accept that if someone wishes to keep an image that is displayed on their screen, they will.
Electrostatic speakers have been delivering exceptionally detailed and neutral sound in a convenient form factor for decades but have been completely ignored by the public since they don't meet their criteria of being big and with a heavy bias towards the low frequencies.
Or perhaps the ridiculously high pricing is the problem with electrostatic ones...
(And before someone starts comparing these to audiophile-priced standard speakers, get-me-them-magical-cables audiophiles don't count as general public.)
I think you've missed the whole point of PDFs. They are meant to preserve formatting.
People use PDFs for the same reason they don't use HTML or plain text for said documents, and vice versa.
Now if the documents you want are perfectly readable as plain text you should blame the source for using an unsuitable format, rather than hating the format for doing what it is supposed to do.
Well I have read what you both refer to and I can say that aside from deeper and more beleivable characters and stories in general, Shirow has a distinctly better explanation for his sentient program than Heinlein's handwaving of "it just had so many parts fitted to it". And more interestingly philosophical to boot.
And attacking someone with "you do not understand books with no pictures" shows that a) you have no appreciation of visual arts and b) you have no valid arguments yet want to find some way of attacking someone who does.
The methods used to combat software piracy seem fairly mild compared to the methods used to combat most other types of crime.
And you don't think that could have something to do with copyright infringement not usually being a crime? Unless you mean actual piracy, which often involves eyepatches and speech impediments..
As we all know crazy people attacking cops are the only ones being Tasered. The police wouldn't dream of Tasing defiant 6 year olds in elementary schools, Tasing students performing passive resistance in a university library or Tasing people refusing a speeding-ticket.
(Anyone actually beleiving the above needs a serious reality-check)
How convenient to compare the lowest resolution that the oldest Amiga (mid 80's) could generate with "Any PC with VGA graphics (..) since mid-1990s". Maybe we can compare 3d graphics quality of a virge s3 card from 10 years ago ( set to lowest resolution ) to any current graphics card of today?