Okay, it's true that I never hit the "Mail" key to pull up Evolution, or hit the "Web/Home" key to bring up Firefox. But if I need to answer the phone, I love hitting the "Play/Pause" key and having the music actually pause. And I really like being able to tweak the volume by hitting the Volume - and Volume + keys.
(Note: the "Play/Pause" key works with Rhythmbox, but not with Xmms. Xmms isn't aware of special keys, but Rhythmbox is GNOME-aware. I believe Muine will also recognize the special keys. Even in Xmms, though, the "Mute" key will at least silence my computer; of course Xmms will keep on playing.)
I also love hitting the "Calculator" key and having the calculator pop up. The problem is, I can't figure out how to make this work under GNOME 2.6; it worked great under GNOME 2.4, but no more.
The good thing about the extra keys is that you don't really need them, so you are free to bind them to be "system" keys rather than keys for doing something inside an application. I don't need the "Refresh" key, because it isn't hard to hit Ctrl+R in Firefox or Nautilus to get a refresh. But it's nice to be able to instantly silence my music without having to go find the app that is playing the music.
Hmm. I should bind JPilot to one of the special keys, so if I want to check my schedule or something I can just pop it up. I should figure out all the little apps I want to pop up frequently, and bind keys for them.
Republicans have commandeered fear. They use fear to lead the people.
And Democrats have commandeered victims. They tell all the black folks, and any other identifiable minority folks, to vote Democrat because they are all poor victims.
And Democrats have commandeered fear too. They tell people to vote for Democrats because Republicans aren't sufficiently anti-gun, and they imply that if you vote Republican you might die due to a lack of "gun control". They tell everyone to vote Democrat because the Republicans want to take lunch away from starving school children, they want to throw feeble old people out into the streets to die, they want to take away all funding for AIDS research so an epidemic could kill everyone, etc.
Also, I am dismayed by how the Democrats are the party of attacking their opponents. Republicans aren't just less effective leaders, they are bad people who want to do evil things and must be stopped!!!
Disclaimer: I am a libertarian, which means both Republicans and Democrats hate my politics. I think the Second Amendment actually means what it says, so the Democrats don't like me. I think the government should stay the heck away from victimless crimes and stay out of people's bedrooms, so the Republicans don't like me. I think the schools should be run by local school boards, not the Federal government, so neither side likes me.
In practice I tend to vote Republican because I dislike the Democrat candidate more than the Republican candidate. Our government is already too big, and the Democrats want to make it bigger; at least some of the Republicans sometimes resist making it bigger (although their record is far from perfect). Actually, I'll vote Libertarian for any candidate who has even a slender chance to win, and sometimes I'll vote Libertarian even if there is no possible chance.
I wonder what that brain scan thingy would make of me.
I said "Microsoft had a hard time" due to hardware issues. An 8MHz 68000 is a way better chip than a 5 MHz 8088, but Microsoft actually tried to make Windows run on the 8088. One simple bitmap display is way easier than trying to work across Hercules cards, CGA, EGA, and VGA, but Microsoft tried to do that too. My point there was that Apple got way ahead of Microsoft in the race to rip off Xerox, because they had the advantage of an integrated platform.
As for the panes, I have no special inside knowledge so I suppose the side-by-side panes of Windows 1.x could have been a deliberate "bait-and-switch". And I suppose Apple might have been lulled by the panes when they signed the agreement. There's no evidence, and your theory requires Microsoft to be brilliant and Machiavellian and Apple to be kind of gullible, and I'm not sure I agree.
Apple discovered that Windows' panes were part of a bait-and-switch--Microsoft turned around and released a version of Windows that was a blatant copy of the Mac GUI.
Um, no.
Steve Jobs saw the cool Xerox GUI computers and wanted to make something like them. Bill Gates saw the cool Xerox GUI computers and also wanted to make something like them.
Apple got to work. They made their own hardware, which was perfect for the software they also made.
Microsoft got to work. They had a very hard time because PC hardware at the time really sucked.
Apple now wanted applications for their new Macintosh platform. They really, really wanted Microsoft Word and a Microsoft spreadsheet. Microsoft said, "well, okay, but only if you agree not to sue when we finally get our Windows thing to actually work." Apple agreed. Microsoft released some cool software for the Mac.
When Microsoft finally released a version of Windows that was even remotely non-sucky, Apple got worried and sued, even though they had already signed an agreement that they wouldn't sue. It took years, but in the end, the judge ruled that Apple had no case whatsoever.
So, a quick recap:
Both Apple and Microsoft ripped off the Xerox ideas for a GUI. Microsoft helped Apple with apps, Apple sued Microsoft despite an agreement not to.
Microsoft has done some things that bother me. But in this case, I view Apple as the bad guy and Microsoft as the injured party. Well, and Xerox as the clueless genius who didn't know what to do with his cool inventions.
When Apple tried to sue, they discovered how completely Gates had outmaneuvered Jobs--those minor features that they had licensed were precisely the ones that were original to Apple, and the license set no restrictions on what Microsoft could do with them in future versions of Windows.
I don't think Bill Gates has such amazing abilities to predict the future that he knew exactly which trivial features to license to screw over Apple. Microsoft lawyers negotiated an agreement with Apple lawyers, and the agreement was supposed to ensure that Apple couldn't prevent Microsoft from selling Windows. Ultimately a judge ruled that the agreement was valid.
Note that if Apple had prevailed, Apple would own GUIs and it would not be possible to have a GUI on a Linux distribution. At least, not without a license from Apple... and I'll just bet that it would be exactly as easy to license a GUI from Apple as it is to license the QuickTime video codecs to write a legal QuickTime player for Linux. Which is to say, impossible.
Even at the time, I thought the IIgs was a mistake.
I read an article about it, and the article said Apple had managed to squeeze an entire Apple II computer into about 5 custom chips. They put those five chips into one corner of a motherboard, and then filled up the whole motherboard with new chips for the fancy IIgs computer.
But the IIgs wasn't really powerful enough to succeed. It didn't have enough horsepower to really do a GUI, and its pretty new color modes didn't have two image buffers. (It was common practice then, at least on the Apple II, to alternate between the two available image buffers. Show one, and then write to the other; when it was ready, switch to it. Always write to the non-visible buffer and then flip to it. It makes the screen updates smoother; you couldn't see stuff being drawn. But on the IIgs you could see stuff being drawn, because there was only one buffer in the best modes.)
I felt at the time, and still feel, that Apple should have taken those five custom chips and made two products:
0) The Apple IIic ("insanely cheap"). A small, compact, and inexpensive Apple II computer. The last Apple II model they would ever make, too.
1) The Apple II plugin card for the Mac. Guaranteed to run all Apple II software perfectly. (Too bad the Mac at that time was black-and-white only, but that would work for the important business Apple II software.) This is the "parlay" strategy the article talked about, or as another Slashdot poster said in this thread, this is "not abandoning existing customers".
The IIgs was an evolutionary dead end, and even though Steve Wozniak was excited by it, it was easily predictable as a flop. It would have been better to make cheap Apple II computers and make Macs run Apple II software, and hurry up on making a color Mac. The resources spent on the IIgs were just wasted.
One of my favorite things in the original Doom games was getting monsters to fight each other. And id clearly designed some levels to encourage this.
If you could get a monster to shoot at you, and the shot hit a second monster, the second monster would get angry and turn towards the first and start attacking it. The the first would turn towards the second and attack, and they would ignore you and just beat on each other until one was dead. (This only worked for different types of monsters; if a grunt shot another grunt, they wouldn't fight. In fact, I don't believe that same-type monsters could even damage each other at all.)
The new game, with its insane system requirements, will only have a handful of monsters at a time (about three, if I understood the Telefragged review correctly). Still, it would be cool if you could sometimes get them to start fighting each other.
I've seen articles about these future soldier outfits before.
One thing they didn't mention here, is that they are seriously thinking that the advanced battle dress will have active cooling of some sort, so that soldiers can wear all this armor and gear in a hot location without keeling over from overheating.
How do you power all the computers, radios, strength enhancement, and active cooling? Last article I read that discussed this said they are looking at fuel cells and microturbine generators, which implies that these super-suits will each need fuel, every day, to continue to operate. (This fuel will probably be methanol, IIRC.)
Thus the high-tech army of the future will not only need a supply of fuel for its vehicles, but for the soldier suits. Of course the US armed forces are very good at logistics, so this probably isn't viewed as a serious problem.
Still, I picture a platoon in the future, cut off from the rest of the army, trying to make their way past the enemy to safety... and having to strip off these fancy uniforms and run around in their underwear, since they ran out of the special fuel.
there is a reason that they are called Unstable and Testing
Yet "Unstable" continues to work well for me. Sometimes I get bitten, but I love getting new software when it is really new.
When you install Unstable, it depends on your luck at the time what works and what doesn't.
I've had few problems. The essential core stuff has never broken on me. One thing you can do to minimize the danger: have multiple computers, and run your update on a spare computer. If it's happy, you can roll that update out to your other computers.
Unstable does sometimes live up to its name, but I'm willing to deal with it. There is no perfect solution; you can have more stability than Unstable if you accept less-frequent updates, and since I have the skills to sort out problems, and I enjoy frequent updates, Unstable is right for me.
If you want to set up a very stable computer, either as a server or as a desktop for someone who can't cope well with problems, Debian Stable is great. And there are backports of the most important new packages (e.g. Firefox) so you can run them on a Stable system.
I have great admiration of the Debian project and philosophy, but frankly I think it's a little too ambitious.
Frankly I think you are on drugs. The Debian project is one of the oldest distros; what they are doing has been working for years and years. Not everybody wants to run Debian, but not everybody wants to run any other distro either.
The fact that so many users recommend Unstable or even Testing to end-users points out flaws in the development model IMO.
IMHO, this just points up the fact that there is a tradeoff between wanting the newest packages and wanting a more stable system. If you want a really stable system, and don't care about new packages: Debian Stable. If you want a really stable system, with some packages newer, Debian Stable plus some backport packages. If you are able to fix problems and want the newest packages, Debian Unstable. And if you want semi-new packages, pretty stable, and you don't care about the whole "community" aspect of Debian, then go with some other distro (such as Fedora).
I say there is no perfect solution, so it is pointless to accuse Debian of not being perfect.
I do the same thing, except I "apt-get install aptitude" and then do the rest in aptitude. I like being able to search packages, arrow through the lists, see dependencies visually, etc.
The media device manager is a huge step forward. Yes, entering a command is less-than-ideally-friendly, but they can put in a list of applications later (2.10, perhaps).
They shouldn't delay a good feature on the grounds that it's not a perfect feature.
Once they get acclimated to the commands, they may venture into the faster cmd-line that 'experts' like to use.
If the GUI tools are done right, then many tasks can simply be done with the GUI and there would be no reason to go to the command line.
For example, if you want to shut down your Wi-Fi, you would probably be content to right-click on a widget on your desktop; going to the command line wouldn't be better.
IBM is in the business of selling computer hardware, and service contracts. They do not consider themselves to be in the business of selling software.
IBM has no wish to try to compete with Red Hat or SuSE, especially given how much revenue those companies are making right now (i.e. not very much, by IBM standards).
IBM does have software projects -- for example, AIX. And if you look at what IBM has been doing with AIX, you see that they have been taking every cool feature of AIX and porting it to Linux. Once Linux can replace AIX, IBM will wind down the AIX project, and move the AIX staff to work on other projects.
IBM must view software as just overhead -- something they need to pay for, that enables them to sell more compters and service contracts, but not itself a profit center. If they can transition from in-house (high-overhead) software, to externally developed software, and still make as much money from hardware sales and service contracts -- that's a very easy business decision to make! All the more so when the free nature of Linux means they have no risk of becoming overly dependent on any one company.
MS will use this in ads, and MS sales folks will mention this. "Telstra looked into Linux, and they saw MS is a better deal."
There will also be some kind of press release, with quotes in it like:
Mr. I. T. Director of Telstra says, "Microsoft's TCO was compelling, yada yada yada."
Probably MS will write the quotes for Telstra.
None of this is shocking or new. This isn't even the first time I have read a story like this on Slashdot, let alone the first time it has ever happened. (Remember when Home Depot announced they would go to Linux for their POS terminals? Remember when they announced they would go to MS?)
Disclaimer: I, myself, prefer the browser-based file manager. So I'm not a "spatial fanboy". But I do think spatial is the right way to go for a total newbie. (I routinely work with directories nested deeply, but newbies tend to have few files and probably will only use one or two directories.)
Is there a fucking guide somewhere that says, "Hey, here's why spacial rocks and here's how to use it effectively."
This article, if you read all the way through it, will convince you. It might not convince you that spatial is for you, but it will at a minimum convince you that the spatial fanboys are not all insane.
This is a good article that covers the basics. At the end it has a list of things you can read to find out more, and some of them are really worth reading. I especially liked the "What were you thinking?" thread; my favorite single email from that thread is here.
the fact that I have to open up the gConf editor just to turn that ridiculous, annoying, FUCKING RETARDED default off is insanity.
I concur. The GNOME developers have realized this as well, and the next release of GNOME will have a preference someplace you can actually find it.
But, I have to say I understand where they are coming from. They feel that if you have outgrown spatial, you are a power user, and if you are a power user, you won't be scared to run GConf. And it really isn't hard to change the option using GConf.
(I'm a dual pane junkie myself.)
I use Nautilus, in its "browser" mode, as a sort of dual-pane browser. I have two or more Nautilus windows open, and I use them to copy and move my files.
One of the points the spatial guys make is that it's easy to shuffle your files around when you have multiple windows open for multiple folders. That's true, but I just open as many Nautilus windows as I wish, and then set them where I want them.
If you are currently in spatial, right-click on a folder and choose "Browse Folder". Or click on the button on the top panel that says "Browse Folder".
Now, pull down the View menu, and make sure "Side Panel" is checked (enabled). You can also hit the F9 key to toggle the Side Panel enabled/disabled.
Now, notice that at the top of the Side Panel there is a dropdown. Click on that and choose "Tree". Voila, you have it back.
It never left. It's just that the default changed to the new spatial mode. Personally, I changed the setting in GConf to make the browser mode the default. (For more on the file browser mode and changing the GConf setting, see this.)
Sometimes I like the "Tree" mode, but usually I like the "Information" panel, where you can see how many files are selected, and you have buttons you can click to launch programs.
As long as the GNOME guys never strip out the file browser mode, I don't care if the default is spatial or not. I'll just use the file browser, myself. (But if I'm using someone else's computer, I'll just use spatial for a moment; it's not like that is hard.)
I work with deeply nested directories. I will usually have two or three Nautilus browsers open at once in a workspace, each looking at a different directory, to make it easy to move or copy files from place to place. It's way easier to work with multiple file manager windows, but because of the deep nesting, spatial would be more work (either a more cluttered desktop, or else needing to be careful to keep the extra folder windows cleaned up).
It's probably true that the "typical newbie" will only ever use about two directories, and that spatial will be a convenient and easy-to-understand interface for such a user. For the rest of us, the full power of Nautilus in file browser mode is still available.
With few exceptions, a manufacturer can't require use of its parts or supplies as a condition of keeping the warranty in effect.
Right. But suppose the manufacturer says: "Go ahead and get it serviced anywhere you want; that won't void your warranty. But we won't give you the passcodes. And if you crack the passcodes, we will prosecute you using the DMCA." What then?
So, to repeat my question, how does a law regulating warranties keep the fastener guys from just not revealing the secret codes?
P.S. You doubt that the feds would take kindly to the use of technical measures to attempt an end run around Magnuson-Moss. What, if anything, have the Feds done to block StorageTek from using technical measures and the DMCA to require their customers to buy service from them? The local court has already ruled that the DMCA is valid and the third-party service thus illegal. When will the Feds step in and what will they do?
I followed your link. That law governs warranties, and forbids companies from requiring customers to buy service from them as a condition of the warranty. How does this keep the fastener guys from keeping the fastener codes secret?
One of the major features touted in the article is security, as in "you can't remove the fasteners without the secret code". As in "you can't install replacement parts unless you buy them from the original maker".
Forget DMCA tricks. This will force you to get all your parts and service from a single source, the company that originally made the product.
Thanks, but no thanks.
Hmmm. There has to be some tool that will remove a fastener without the security code, because what happens when a fastener breaks in such a way that it doesn't accept any code? "I'm sorry, you need a new engine, because the fasteners on your oil pan are broken. They don't answer the commands to unfasten." Not likely! So I guess if you are willing to go to a great deal of trouble you could pry out all the secure fasteners and put in your own.
Of course that would be a DMCA violation, but at least I can hope that the DMCA will be dead long before these fasteners are actually practical for widespread use.
Hollywood must have these because they have already appeared in the movie Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle. At the beginning of the movie, the Lucy Liu character is hidden inside a crate, but then we see wood screws spinning by themselves and popping out of their holes. Then Lucy Liu unfolds herself and climbs out.
I always wondered how she got those screws to come out, especially given that her hands were folded to the bottom of the crate and the screws were on the top. Now I know.
Lance's big chances to gain a time advantage are time trial stages and mountain stages. When he hits those stages, expect him to really pour on the effort.
Told you so. In each mountain stage and time trial stage, he made up time compared to his competition. He finished the Tour over six minutes ahead of the second-place rider.
Six Tours won, the first time anyone has done that. In a row, too!
Anyone can take things that I've worked on and decide to redo it. They can take lyrics, melodies, anything, and use them to suit their tastes. They can write rap "music" using the tune I wrote for a harp.
But only for non-commercial purposes, only with attribution, and only if they in turn license whatever they make under the same license.
If you just plain don't want people doing that stuff to your music, then yeah, Magnatune isn't for you.
Um, I thought you just had to agree to the Creative Commons license I mentioned. So if anyone wanted to do anything commercial, they would have to pay you. But if some guy wanted to make a short video and give it away on the Internet, he would be able to use your music (non-commercial, and with attribution).
If that's not what you want, fine. But it hardly seems like "music communism" to me.
I think some of the stuff in there might be free even for commercial purposes, at least in some countries. They have recordings made from really old records (1927, for instance), and there might be some newer public domain stuff in there.
Slashdot Mirror
Okay, it's true that I never hit the "Mail" key to pull up Evolution, or hit the "Web/Home" key to bring up Firefox. But if I need to answer the phone, I love hitting the "Play/Pause" key and having the music actually pause. And I really like being able to tweak the volume by hitting the Volume - and Volume + keys.
(Note: the "Play/Pause" key works with Rhythmbox, but not with Xmms. Xmms isn't aware of special keys, but Rhythmbox is GNOME-aware. I believe Muine will also recognize the special keys. Even in Xmms, though, the "Mute" key will at least silence my computer; of course Xmms will keep on playing.)
I also love hitting the "Calculator" key and having the calculator pop up. The problem is, I can't figure out how to make this work under GNOME 2.6; it worked great under GNOME 2.4, but no more.
The good thing about the extra keys is that you don't really need them, so you are free to bind them to be "system" keys rather than keys for doing something inside an application. I don't need the "Refresh" key, because it isn't hard to hit Ctrl+R in Firefox or Nautilus to get a refresh. But it's nice to be able to instantly silence my music without having to go find the app that is playing the music.
Hmm. I should bind JPilot to one of the special keys, so if I want to check my schedule or something I can just pop it up. I should figure out all the little apps I want to pop up frequently, and bind keys for them.
steveha
Republicans have commandeered fear. They use fear to lead the people.
And Democrats have commandeered victims. They tell all the black folks, and any other identifiable minority folks, to vote Democrat because they are all poor victims.
And Democrats have commandeered fear too. They tell people to vote for Democrats because Republicans aren't sufficiently anti-gun, and they imply that if you vote Republican you might die due to a lack of "gun control". They tell everyone to vote Democrat because the Republicans want to take lunch away from starving school children, they want to throw feeble old people out into the streets to die, they want to take away all funding for AIDS research so an epidemic could kill everyone, etc.
Also, I am dismayed by how the Democrats are the party of attacking their opponents. Republicans aren't just less effective leaders, they are bad people who want to do evil things and must be stopped!!!
Disclaimer: I am a libertarian, which means both Republicans and Democrats hate my politics. I think the Second Amendment actually means what it says, so the Democrats don't like me. I think the government should stay the heck away from victimless crimes and stay out of people's bedrooms, so the Republicans don't like me. I think the schools should be run by local school boards, not the Federal government, so neither side likes me.
In practice I tend to vote Republican because I dislike the Democrat candidate more than the Republican candidate. Our government is already too big, and the Democrats want to make it bigger; at least some of the Republicans sometimes resist making it bigger (although their record is far from perfect). Actually, I'll vote Libertarian for any candidate who has even a slender chance to win, and sometimes I'll vote Libertarian even if there is no possible chance.
I wonder what that brain scan thingy would make of me.
steveha
the issue wasn't the hardware
I said "Microsoft had a hard time" due to hardware issues. An 8MHz 68000 is a way better chip than a 5 MHz 8088, but Microsoft actually tried to make Windows run on the 8088. One simple bitmap display is way easier than trying to work across Hercules cards, CGA, EGA, and VGA, but Microsoft tried to do that too. My point there was that Apple got way ahead of Microsoft in the race to rip off Xerox, because they had the advantage of an integrated platform.
As for the panes, I have no special inside knowledge so I suppose the side-by-side panes of Windows 1.x could have been a deliberate "bait-and-switch". And I suppose Apple might have been lulled by the panes when they signed the agreement. There's no evidence, and your theory requires Microsoft to be brilliant and Machiavellian and Apple to be kind of gullible, and I'm not sure I agree.
steveha
Apple discovered that Windows' panes were part of a bait-and-switch--Microsoft turned around and released a version of Windows that was a blatant copy of the Mac GUI.
Um, no.
Steve Jobs saw the cool Xerox GUI computers and wanted to make something like them. Bill Gates saw the cool Xerox GUI computers and also wanted to make something like them.
Apple got to work. They made their own hardware, which was perfect for the software they also made.
Microsoft got to work. They had a very hard time because PC hardware at the time really sucked.
Apple now wanted applications for their new Macintosh platform. They really, really wanted Microsoft Word and a Microsoft spreadsheet. Microsoft said, "well, okay, but only if you agree not to sue when we finally get our Windows thing to actually work." Apple agreed. Microsoft released some cool software for the Mac.
When Microsoft finally released a version of Windows that was even remotely non-sucky, Apple got worried and sued, even though they had already signed an agreement that they wouldn't sue. It took years, but in the end, the judge ruled that Apple had no case whatsoever.
So, a quick recap:
Both Apple and Microsoft ripped off the Xerox ideas for a GUI. Microsoft helped Apple with apps, Apple sued Microsoft despite an agreement not to.
Microsoft has done some things that bother me. But in this case, I view Apple as the bad guy and Microsoft as the injured party. Well, and Xerox as the clueless genius who didn't know what to do with his cool inventions.
When Apple tried to sue, they discovered how completely Gates had outmaneuvered Jobs--those minor features that they had licensed were precisely the ones that were original to Apple, and the license set no restrictions on what Microsoft could do with them in future versions of Windows.
I don't think Bill Gates has such amazing abilities to predict the future that he knew exactly which trivial features to license to screw over Apple. Microsoft lawyers negotiated an agreement with Apple lawyers, and the agreement was supposed to ensure that Apple couldn't prevent Microsoft from selling Windows. Ultimately a judge ruled that the agreement was valid.
Note that if Apple had prevailed, Apple would own GUIs and it would not be possible to have a GUI on a Linux distribution. At least, not without a license from Apple... and I'll just bet that it would be exactly as easy to license a GUI from Apple as it is to license the QuickTime video codecs to write a legal QuickTime player for Linux. Which is to say, impossible.
steveha
Even at the time, I thought the IIgs was a mistake.
I read an article about it, and the article said Apple had managed to squeeze an entire Apple II computer into about 5 custom chips. They put those five chips into one corner of a motherboard, and then filled up the whole motherboard with new chips for the fancy IIgs computer.
But the IIgs wasn't really powerful enough to succeed. It didn't have enough horsepower to really do a GUI, and its pretty new color modes didn't have two image buffers. (It was common practice then, at least on the Apple II, to alternate between the two available image buffers. Show one, and then write to the other; when it was ready, switch to it. Always write to the non-visible buffer and then flip to it. It makes the screen updates smoother; you couldn't see stuff being drawn. But on the IIgs you could see stuff being drawn, because there was only one buffer in the best modes.)
I felt at the time, and still feel, that Apple should have taken those five custom chips and made two products:
0) The Apple IIic ("insanely cheap"). A small, compact, and inexpensive Apple II computer. The last Apple II model they would ever make, too.
1) The Apple II plugin card for the Mac. Guaranteed to run all Apple II software perfectly. (Too bad the Mac at that time was black-and-white only, but that would work for the important business Apple II software.) This is the "parlay" strategy the article talked about, or as another Slashdot poster said in this thread, this is "not abandoning existing customers".
The IIgs was an evolutionary dead end, and even though Steve Wozniak was excited by it, it was easily predictable as a flop. It would have been better to make cheap Apple II computers and make Macs run Apple II software, and hurry up on making a color Mac. The resources spent on the IIgs were just wasted.
steveha
Whoa. You really know this stuff!
Not sarcasm: I'm impressed.
I imagine you are looking forward to Doom 3.
steveha
One of my favorite things in the original Doom games was getting monsters to fight each other. And id clearly designed some levels to encourage this.
If you could get a monster to shoot at you, and the shot hit a second monster, the second monster would get angry and turn towards the first and start attacking it. The the first would turn towards the second and attack, and they would ignore you and just beat on each other until one was dead. (This only worked for different types of monsters; if a grunt shot another grunt, they wouldn't fight. In fact, I don't believe that same-type monsters could even damage each other at all.)
The new game, with its insane system requirements, will only have a handful of monsters at a time (about three, if I understood the Telefragged review correctly). Still, it would be cool if you could sometimes get them to start fighting each other.
steveha
I've seen articles about these future soldier outfits before.
One thing they didn't mention here, is that they are seriously thinking that the advanced battle dress will have active cooling of some sort, so that soldiers can wear all this armor and gear in a hot location without keeling over from overheating.
How do you power all the computers, radios, strength enhancement, and active cooling? Last article I read that discussed this said they are looking at fuel cells and microturbine generators, which implies that these super-suits will each need fuel, every day, to continue to operate. (This fuel will probably be methanol, IIRC.)
Thus the high-tech army of the future will not only need a supply of fuel for its vehicles, but for the soldier suits. Of course the US armed forces are very good at logistics, so this probably isn't viewed as a serious problem.
Still, I picture a platoon in the future, cut off from the rest of the army, trying to make their way past the enemy to safety... and having to strip off these fancy uniforms and run around in their underwear, since they ran out of the special fuel.
steveha
there is a reason that they are called Unstable and Testing
Yet "Unstable" continues to work well for me. Sometimes I get bitten, but I love getting new software when it is really new.
When you install Unstable, it depends on your luck at the time what works and what doesn't.
I've had few problems. The essential core stuff has never broken on me. One thing you can do to minimize the danger: have multiple computers, and run your update on a spare computer. If it's happy, you can roll that update out to your other computers.
Unstable does sometimes live up to its name, but I'm willing to deal with it. There is no perfect solution; you can have more stability than Unstable if you accept less-frequent updates, and since I have the skills to sort out problems, and I enjoy frequent updates, Unstable is right for me.
If you want to set up a very stable computer, either as a server or as a desktop for someone who can't cope well with problems, Debian Stable is great. And there are backports of the most important new packages (e.g. Firefox) so you can run them on a Stable system.
I have great admiration of the Debian project and philosophy, but frankly I think it's a little too ambitious.
Frankly I think you are on drugs. The Debian project is one of the oldest distros; what they are doing has been working for years and years. Not everybody wants to run Debian, but not everybody wants to run any other distro either.
The fact that so many users recommend Unstable or even Testing to end-users points out flaws in the development model IMO.
IMHO, this just points up the fact that there is a tradeoff between wanting the newest packages and wanting a more stable system. If you want a really stable system, and don't care about new packages: Debian Stable. If you want a really stable system, with some packages newer, Debian Stable plus some backport packages. If you are able to fix problems and want the newest packages, Debian Unstable. And if you want semi-new packages, pretty stable, and you don't care about the whole "community" aspect of Debian, then go with some other distro (such as Fedora).
I say there is no perfect solution, so it is pointless to accuse Debian of not being perfect.
steveha
I do the same thing, except I "apt-get install aptitude" and then do the rest in aptitude. I like being able to search packages, arrow through the lists, see dependencies visually, etc.
steveha
The media device manager is a huge step forward. Yes, entering a command is less-than-ideally-friendly, but they can put in a list of applications later (2.10, perhaps).
They shouldn't delay a good feature on the grounds that it's not a perfect feature.
steveha
Once they get acclimated to the commands, they may venture into the faster cmd-line that 'experts' like to use.
If the GUI tools are done right, then many tasks can simply be done with the GUI and there would be no reason to go to the command line.
For example, if you want to shut down your Wi-Fi, you would probably be content to right-click on a widget on your desktop; going to the command line wouldn't be better.
steveha
IBM is in the business of selling computer hardware, and service contracts. They do not consider themselves to be in the business of selling software.
IBM has no wish to try to compete with Red Hat or SuSE, especially given how much revenue those companies are making right now (i.e. not very much, by IBM standards).
IBM does have software projects -- for example, AIX. And if you look at what IBM has been doing with AIX, you see that they have been taking every cool feature of AIX and porting it to Linux. Once Linux can replace AIX, IBM will wind down the AIX project, and move the AIX staff to work on other projects.
IBM must view software as just overhead -- something they need to pay for, that enables them to sell more compters and service contracts, but not itself a profit center. If they can transition from in-house (high-overhead) software, to externally developed software, and still make as much money from hardware sales and service contracts -- that's a very easy business decision to make! All the more so when the free nature of Linux means they have no risk of becoming overly dependent on any one company.
steveha
MS will use this in ads, and MS sales folks will mention this. "Telstra looked into Linux, and they saw MS is a better deal."
There will also be some kind of press release, with quotes in it like:
Mr. I. T. Director of Telstra says, "Microsoft's TCO was compelling, yada yada yada."
Probably MS will write the quotes for Telstra.
None of this is shocking or new. This isn't even the first time I have read a story like this on Slashdot, let alone the first time it has ever happened. (Remember when Home Depot announced they would go to Linux for their POS terminals? Remember when they announced they would go to MS?)
steveha
Disclaimer: I, myself, prefer the browser-based file manager. So I'm not a "spatial fanboy". But I do think spatial is the right way to go for a total newbie. (I routinely work with directories nested deeply, but newbies tend to have few files and probably will only use one or two directories.)
Is there a fucking guide somewhere that says, "Hey, here's why spacial rocks and here's how to use it effectively."
Here are two such guides.
About the Finder...
This article, if you read all the way through it, will convince you. It might not convince you that spatial is for you, but it will at a minimum convince you that the spatial fanboys are not all insane.
The Spatial Way
This is a good article that covers the basics. At the end it has a list of things you can read to find out more, and some of them are really worth reading. I especially liked the "What were you thinking?" thread; my favorite single email from that thread is here.
the fact that I have to open up the gConf editor just to turn that ridiculous, annoying, FUCKING RETARDED default off is insanity.
I concur. The GNOME developers have realized this as well, and the next release of GNOME will have a preference someplace you can actually find it.
But, I have to say I understand where they are coming from. They feel that if you have outgrown spatial, you are a power user, and if you are a power user, you won't be scared to run GConf. And it really isn't hard to change the option using GConf.
(I'm a dual pane junkie myself.)
I use Nautilus, in its "browser" mode, as a sort of dual-pane browser. I have two or more Nautilus windows open, and I use them to copy and move my files.
One of the points the spatial guys make is that it's easy to shuffle your files around when you have multiple windows open for multiple folders. That's true, but I just open as many Nautilus windows as I wish, and then set them where I want them.
steveha
I miss that Nautilus... I want it back
Okay.
If you are currently in spatial, right-click on a folder and choose "Browse Folder". Or click on the button on the top panel that says "Browse Folder".
Now, pull down the View menu, and make sure "Side Panel" is checked (enabled). You can also hit the F9 key to toggle the Side Panel enabled/disabled.
Now, notice that at the top of the Side Panel there is a dropdown. Click on that and choose "Tree". Voila, you have it back.
It never left. It's just that the default changed to the new spatial mode. Personally, I changed the setting in GConf to make the browser mode the default. (For more on the file browser mode and changing the GConf setting, see this.)
Sometimes I like the "Tree" mode, but usually I like the "Information" panel, where you can see how many files are selected, and you have buttons you can click to launch programs.
steveha
As long as the GNOME guys never strip out the file browser mode, I don't care if the default is spatial or not. I'll just use the file browser, myself. (But if I'm using someone else's computer, I'll just use spatial for a moment; it's not like that is hard.)
I work with deeply nested directories. I will usually have two or three Nautilus browsers open at once in a workspace, each looking at a different directory, to make it easy to move or copy files from place to place. It's way easier to work with multiple file manager windows, but because of the deep nesting, spatial would be more work (either a more cluttered desktop, or else needing to be careful to keep the extra folder windows cleaned up).
It's probably true that the "typical newbie" will only ever use about two directories, and that spatial will be a convenient and easy-to-understand interface for such a user. For the rest of us, the full power of Nautilus in file browser mode is still available.
steveha
With few exceptions, a manufacturer can't require use of its parts or supplies as a condition of keeping the warranty in effect.
Right. But suppose the manufacturer says: "Go ahead and get it serviced anywhere you want; that won't void your warranty. But we won't give you the passcodes. And if you crack the passcodes, we will prosecute you using the DMCA." What then?
So, to repeat my question, how does a law regulating warranties keep the fastener guys from just not revealing the secret codes?
P.S. You doubt that the feds would take kindly to the use of technical measures to attempt an end run around Magnuson-Moss. What, if anything, have the Feds done to block StorageTek from using technical measures and the DMCA to require their customers to buy service from them? The local court has already ruled that the DMCA is valid and the third-party service thus illegal. When will the Feds step in and what will they do?
steveha
I followed your link. That law governs warranties, and forbids companies from requiring customers to buy service from them as a condition of the warranty. How does this keep the fastener guys from keeping the fastener codes secret?
steveha
One of the major features touted in the article is security, as in "you can't remove the fasteners without the secret code". As in "you can't install replacement parts unless you buy them from the original maker".
Forget DMCA tricks. This will force you to get all your parts and service from a single source, the company that originally made the product.
Thanks, but no thanks.
Hmmm. There has to be some tool that will remove a fastener without the security code, because what happens when a fastener breaks in such a way that it doesn't accept any code? "I'm sorry, you need a new engine, because the fasteners on your oil pan are broken. They don't answer the commands to unfasten." Not likely! So I guess if you are willing to go to a great deal of trouble you could pry out all the secure fasteners and put in your own.
Of course that would be a DMCA violation, but at least I can hope that the DMCA will be dead long before these fasteners are actually practical for widespread use.
steveha
Hollywood must have these because they have already appeared in the movie Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle. At the beginning of the movie, the Lucy Liu character is hidden inside a crate, but then we see wood screws spinning by themselves and popping out of their holes. Then Lucy Liu unfolds herself and climbs out.
I always wondered how she got those screws to come out, especially given that her hands were folded to the bottom of the crate and the screws were on the top. Now I know.
steveha
Lance's big chances to gain a time advantage are time trial stages and mountain stages. When he hits those stages, expect him to really pour on the effort.
Told you so. In each mountain stage and time trial stage, he made up time compared to his competition. He finished the Tour over six minutes ahead of the second-place rider.
Six Tours won, the first time anyone has done that. In a row, too!
steveha
Anyone can take things that I've worked on and decide to redo it. They can take lyrics, melodies, anything, and use them to suit their tastes. They can write rap "music" using the tune I wrote for a harp.
But only for non-commercial purposes, only with attribution, and only if they in turn license whatever they make under the same license.
If you just plain don't want people doing that stuff to your music, then yeah, Magnatune isn't for you.
steveha
Um, I thought you just had to agree to the Creative Commons license I mentioned. So if anyone wanted to do anything commercial, they would have to pay you. But if some guy wanted to make a short video and give it away on the Internet, he would be able to use your music (non-commercial, and with attribution).
If that's not what you want, fine. But it hardly seems like "music communism" to me.
If I'm wrong about something, please explain.
steveha
One solution would be to find software that is free for commercial use. I'd suggest looking through the Internet Archive:
http://archive.org/audio
I think some of the stuff in there might be free even for commercial purposes, at least in some countries. They have recordings made from really old records (1927, for instance), and there might be some newer public domain stuff in there.
I did find this:
http://www.pdinfo.com/source/TtlRFree.htm
Music you can license for a one-time only fee.
steveha