There was a time when you could expect people on Slashdot to know about the most popular Linux desktop distro and not need to be spoon-fed that information.
There is nothing informative about "an impressive list of improvements, increased stability and a refined desktop experience". At the very least the summary could have contained something detailed or specific about the distro release apart from its name.
I've been satisfied with MATE, having been introduced to it by Linux Mint.
Yes, Linux Mint with Mate is the most usable Linux distro I have found at the moment (ie: user friendly, community supported, easily recognizable), so it's what the family uses, but for productivity I have settled with KDE especially since it now has proper color management.
I can actually understand where Gnome is going with its user interface. Hands-on displays are probably going to become the norm which does require a rethink and general overhaul of the interface, and the mouse will gradually become redunant. People (like me) who are used to the mouse and keyboard might find it hard to see how productivity can improve without the two, but if you imagine that in a year or two there will be large (A4 or even A3 size), high resolution displays that sit horizontally on a desk or a lectern, which have multi-touch interfaces plus pressure sensitive pen devices, then a mouse is totally redundant and a keyboard an optional extra. At that point we could finally say that computers are a true paper replacement.
The main reason why there is less malware for Linux is simply that malware is a business: It's the same reason why there is also less other commercial software for Linux.
But if you can hijack, say, 15% of linux systems on the web, imagine the profits!
Linux has less malware because Linux is better. It just is.
How exactly blocking Gmail et al. would make China become backward?
I mean, it is a fair question.
To my mind, it's a strategic act by China, which presumably has alternative technology that has been locally developed (possibly copied), that it wants to roll out. Politically it is an act of defiance against the USA, so it is a kind of act of war, in the ongoing rumbling and ever developing conflict between the two powers.
It will disadvantage Google, particularly in cutting off its intelligence gathering ability, but it also might suggest a problem within China, which is under pressure to maintain its productivity (much of it reliant on US technology) without leaking its activities and strategies all over the place.
I don't see any product which shouldn't belong to this island...
You're right, actually. Most of those products are reasonably good ideas, the main failing was blatant price-gouging. Most of them failed because the competition was already there.
Apple relies on coming out with novel products at ridiculous but nonetheless irresistible prices as far ahead as possible from the competition. They have done it several times with spectacular success, but this is a weakness Apple has always had. They generally cannot make a product that is better and cheaper than the competition.
I have the feeling that people are going to try using this to perform techniques that are above their skill level. They will probably die. Its awesome for racers who are trying to shave time off their laps, and who are in a controlled setting. For most riders, I think this will lead to a slight increase in fatalities.
This app would make an excellent gift for certain people...
is like throwing stones in a glass house. It's too early to say whether Apple is heading for a wall, as many predict, but relying on patents to protect their markets instead of functionality, interoperability and build quality (which have been Apple's strengths recently) is a flawed approach.
is freedom and to be let alone, to live without fear. That is what is scary about a government that knows (or can if it wants to) every detail down to what color rash you had when you were in college. But Scott Adams is right, nobody has such a right, but it's something that is worth fighting for nonetheless.
... I have picked the wrong business model, and someone should fix it for me.
You have it right. The cloud companies are charging an unrealistic premium for their services without offering genuine security. Should regular hosting companies worry yet? I don't think so, not until someone offers a cloud computing system that does not, by default, leave its encryption keys lying around on the host server.
Err wrong. Google was more than happy to provide navigation. All they wanted was a little more credit for it and Apple wasn't going to have any of that.
Honestly, those two are carrying on like a married couple!
Better still, don't trust hardware any more than you trust software. A virtual environment has the potential to bring the worst of both.
I am against flying in clouds, lest they be connected to cumulo granite. I am all in favor of research that reveals how centralization of information is bad for the vast majority, and this goes to demonstrate the problem quite well.
What does this have to do with Skype being proprietary? An open source company could just as easily handed information over, assuming they ran a service which required payment.
Because Skype was bought by Microsoft.
I love Big Brother!
Perhaps this is the way forward for the freemium business model -- limit the "free" version to a part of a wider "free" system. So the free version is "closed", but the paid version is "open". That means turning a few of our assumptions about the word "open" on their head...
Or perhaps they should just charge what it's worth. An online textbook with a large readership should not cost much at all. When things are priced without an over-sized profit margin, people buy them. In fact, if the textbook is old, it is worthless and so they may as well give that away for free. On the other hand a textbook which is continually updated and remains current through expert review is worth a subscription. People who need that kind of currency of information will certainly pay for it.
Of course, that's not what Linaro is about. They are looking forward to stop the explosion of code and architecture within the ARM familly. No two ARM machine boots the same. No two ARM processors expose component the same way. You did not read Linus saying "what about stoping the ARM crap?"
Soon they will have to address this problem, not so much as to allow Linux to spread, but because it drives the cost of ARM based devices for the companies that make money writing the operating systems for them, such as Microsoft. It is a competitive disadvantage for ARM to be in charge of a zoo.
Yet Apple is a heavy user of the government-provided resources in my country that my taxes pay for, and is one of the organisations with far more frequent access to the very politicians you're suggesting should fix the problem.
Are you suggesting I should be happy about their ability to manipulate the situation so I get to pay for their infrastructure?
Welcome to the world where crime pays, especially the kind that gets re-branded as "investment".
Apple's more recent success was in creating and filling a market that hadn't previously been properly established and expanded. Full credit to it for its imagination and high standards with regards to usability. Its success has also been to exploit the lackluster performance of Microsoft, which seemed to have become complacent in its market dominance.
However Apple plays dirty, and it is worse than Microsoft in its lock-down and lock-in attitude to its systems. That is its weakness, and Google has had some success with Android because of this. Microsoft is the dark horse this time I think because if it can produce a software development platform that straddles the x86 architecture and also ARM, it can kick Apple's arse.
Sadly, Linux once again is left a bit in the cold, except in its Android incarnation. I wish the hardware on smartphones and tablets was more open.
Slashdot Mirror
There was a time when you could expect people on Slashdot to know about the most popular Linux desktop distro and not need to be spoon-fed that information.
There is nothing informative about "an impressive list of improvements, increased stability and a refined desktop experience". At the very least the summary could have contained something detailed or specific about the distro release apart from its name.
I don't understand the constant alarmism.
Slow news day.
I've been satisfied with MATE, having been introduced to it by Linux Mint.
Yes, Linux Mint with Mate is the most usable Linux distro I have found at the moment (ie: user friendly, community supported, easily recognizable), so it's what the family uses, but for productivity I have settled with KDE especially since it now has proper color management. I can actually understand where Gnome is going with its user interface. Hands-on displays are probably going to become the norm which does require a rethink and general overhaul of the interface, and the mouse will gradually become redunant. People (like me) who are used to the mouse and keyboard might find it hard to see how productivity can improve without the two, but if you imagine that in a year or two there will be large (A4 or even A3 size), high resolution displays that sit horizontally on a desk or a lectern, which have multi-touch interfaces plus pressure sensitive pen devices, then a mouse is totally redundant and a keyboard an optional extra. At that point we could finally say that computers are a true paper replacement.
The main reason why there is less malware for Linux is simply that malware is a business: It's the same reason why there is also less other commercial software for Linux.
But if you can hijack, say, 15% of linux systems on the web, imagine the profits!
Linux has less malware because Linux is better. It just is.
How exactly blocking Gmail et al. would make China become backward?
I mean, it is a fair question.
To my mind, it's a strategic act by China, which presumably has alternative technology that has been locally developed (possibly copied), that it wants to roll out. Politically it is an act of defiance against the USA, so it is a kind of act of war, in the ongoing rumbling and ever developing conflict between the two powers.
It will disadvantage Google, particularly in cutting off its intelligence gathering ability, but it also might suggest a problem within China, which is under pressure to maintain its productivity (much of it reliant on US technology) without leaking its activities and strategies all over the place.
I don't see any product which shouldn't belong to this island ...
You're right, actually. Most of those products are reasonably good ideas, the main failing was blatant price-gouging. Most of them failed because the competition was already there. Apple relies on coming out with novel products at ridiculous but nonetheless irresistible prices as far ahead as possible from the competition. They have done it several times with spectacular success, but this is a weakness Apple has always had. They generally cannot make a product that is better and cheaper than the competition.
I want them to synthesize a fully functioning Marylin Monroe to go with my 3D printed vintage sports car.
Honey, grab the maple syrup and the cheap viagara. We're celebrating. Now, if only we looked at Apple's patents then we can really stir some shit up.
The "upshot" of which would be an Icecream Sandwich: http://www.gizchina.com/wp-content/uploads/images/apple-android-rival-blow-job-sign-china.jpg
I have the feeling that people are going to try using this to perform techniques that are above their skill level. They will probably die. Its awesome for racers who are trying to shave time off their laps, and who are in a controlled setting. For most riders, I think this will lead to a slight increase in fatalities.
This app would make an excellent gift for certain people...
is like throwing stones in a glass house. It's too early to say whether Apple is heading for a wall, as many predict, but relying on patents to protect their markets instead of functionality, interoperability and build quality (which have been Apple's strengths recently) is a flawed approach.
is freedom and to be let alone, to live without fear. That is what is scary about a government that knows (or can if it wants to) every detail down to what color rash you had when you were in college. But Scott Adams is right, nobody has such a right, but it's something that is worth fighting for nonetheless.
Why a user would not simply install MS Security Essentials and be done with it?
It's a feature!
Where you see a walled garden, I see a prison.
Where you see a prison, I see an zombie-proof enclave.
It's not a prison, until you try the door.
Umm... Skype 6.0 already began integrating WLM and Skype accounts.
It's a shame Skype got bought out. It's already getting bloaty and beginning to suck in various ways.
... I have picked the wrong business model, and someone should fix it for me.
You have it right. The cloud companies are charging an unrealistic premium for their services without offering genuine security. Should regular hosting companies worry yet? I don't think so, not until someone offers a cloud computing system that does not, by default, leave its encryption keys lying around on the host server.
Err wrong. Google was more than happy to provide navigation. All they wanted was a little more credit for it and Apple wasn't going to have any of that.
Honestly, those two are carrying on like a married couple!
Better still, don't trust hardware any more than you trust software. A virtual environment has the potential to bring the worst of both. I am against flying in clouds, lest they be connected to cumulo granite. I am all in favor of research that reveals how centralization of information is bad for the vast majority, and this goes to demonstrate the problem quite well.
What does this have to do with Skype being proprietary? An open source company could just as easily handed information over, assuming they ran a service which required payment.
Because Skype was bought by Microsoft. I love Big Brother!
Perhaps this is the way forward for the freemium business model -- limit the "free" version to a part of a wider "free" system. So the free version is "closed", but the paid version is "open". That means turning a few of our assumptions about the word "open" on their head...
Or perhaps they should just charge what it's worth. An online textbook with a large readership should not cost much at all. When things are priced without an over-sized profit margin, people buy them. In fact, if the textbook is old, it is worthless and so they may as well give that away for free. On the other hand a textbook which is continually updated and remains current through expert review is worth a subscription. People who need that kind of currency of information will certainly pay for it.
Of course, that's not what Linaro is about. They are looking forward to stop the explosion of code and architecture within the ARM familly. No two ARM machine boots the same. No two ARM processors expose component the same way. You did not read Linus saying "what about stoping the ARM crap?"
Soon they will have to address this problem, not so much as to allow Linux to spread, but because it drives the cost of ARM based devices for the companies that make money writing the operating systems for them, such as Microsoft. It is a competitive disadvantage for ARM to be in charge of a zoo.
Yet Apple is a heavy user of the government-provided resources in my country that my taxes pay for, and is one of the organisations with far more frequent access to the very politicians you're suggesting should fix the problem.
Are you suggesting I should be happy about their ability to manipulate the situation so I get to pay for their infrastructure?
Welcome to the world where crime pays, especially the kind that gets re-branded as "investment".
And so if you keep programming, you keep learning and stave off brain rot.
Apple's more recent success was in creating and filling a market that hadn't previously been properly established and expanded. Full credit to it for its imagination and high standards with regards to usability. Its success has also been to exploit the lackluster performance of Microsoft, which seemed to have become complacent in its market dominance. However Apple plays dirty, and it is worse than Microsoft in its lock-down and lock-in attitude to its systems. That is its weakness, and Google has had some success with Android because of this. Microsoft is the dark horse this time I think because if it can produce a software development platform that straddles the x86 architecture and also ARM, it can kick Apple's arse. Sadly, Linux once again is left a bit in the cold, except in its Android incarnation. I wish the hardware on smartphones and tablets was more open.
including genetically altered specimens in-bred over many generations
didn't know the royals were in NY during the storm.
(I kid, I kid!)
They are keeping goats there too?