I expect a GUI to be able to control all aspects of the OS that I need to access
Why?
Re:Catching up ever so slowly
on
GNOME 2.24 Released
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Why is it that windows can actually hide taskbar icons that I don't use.
I assume you mean the system tray. My question is, if you don't use them why would you even want them in the system tray? The very fact that Windows needs a "hide" option is a problem.
By the time Windows 2000 came around, there was nothing in the OS that I could not configure using the GUI.
That's true, but only because you can't configure anything without the GUI. I could remove all of the command line configuration tools from Linux, and then everything that could be configured would be what would configurable via the GUI.
Here's my list of Windows GUI functionality complaints: Windows only has one panel, ever. You can't remove the start button. You can't move the start button. You can't rearrange the start menu. Application launchers in the start menu are not organized. There are non-launcher entries in the start menu. You can't add your own menu to the panel. In fact, you can only add application launchers to the task bar. Windows doesn't have virtual workspaces. Windows don't shade. Windows can't be made sticky. Window frame can't be changed. Window frame buttons can't be added, removed, or change position.
If Microsoft had implemented the usability features that Aero could provide, I would imagine lots of people would use it. I use Compiz-Fusion, not just because of transparent window borders and drop shadows, but because it provides usability features that Metacity doesn't.
Yes, and I knew that, but it did mean that you couldn't run Aero on older DX9 hardware, when it really should have been possible to provide the same functionality on a DX9 card.
No it wasn't, and if you'll allow me a minute I'll explain why.
The XP operating system needed to be updated to keep up with the friendly user interface that OSX uses.
The XP operating system was cable of the friendly UI elements of OSX, there were actually many add-ons for XP that offered some of them (admittedly badly). A new OS wasn't necessary to accomplish this. Aero/WDM is actually one of the few things they got right in Vista, unfortunately they decided to tie it to DX10 limiting it's use on older/cheaper hardware, and also neglected to actually implement the OSX-style features it's perfectly capable of. The fact that transparent window frames and Flip3D are all that they ship is a disgrace on it's own.
You see they needed better security and better user interface. It's not an easy thing to accomplish putting the two together.
It's easy if you separate the secure from the insecure. Linux desktops suffered from this problem for a while too, gksudo/kdesudo were not the most user friendly or secure way to accomplish their goals, but PolicyKit is making that experience much better. Microsoft seems to have chosen the easy route, and just tanks the user experience to gain security, which ironically usually makes it less secure.
I'm just saying Microsoft was trying to do alot of things and fucked it up.
Yes they did, however the fuck up was in the design, not the implementation. The very ideas for Vista were bad, and the only good ideas in Vista were left unrealized.
The article says that software is for the "classroom", not the OLPC. I'm nearly positive that MS Office 2003 won't be usable on the laptop, and I'd bet money that the "Student Innovation Suite" won't either.
I will respond because I didn't make my initial statement without thinking. Greater than what they had - meaning more than. Before this they had nothing available probably. This is not less than nothing.
No, before this they had an OLPC with Linux available. It's kind of like saying I'll give you a Ferrari, then later on saying I'm actually going to give you a Yugo. Sure, a Yugo is more than nothing, but it is less that what you were initially going to get.
This computer can still be a learning tool for children. This tool can still teach critical thinking.
How? What is shipping with WinXP on this laptop that will teach critical thinking?
One does NOT need to be using an open source platform to engage in critical thinking.
True, they could have chosen something like Solaris, or forked and closed a BSD like Apple did, and still had most of the benefit they got from Linux. But WinXP is a different beast. You get no compiler. The interface is compiled and you don't have the source. The apps are compiled and you don't have the source. Is there a single program (besides BAT files) on the WinXP that will be shipped with the OLPC that can be changed?
You can do just fine in getting from Point A to Point B in a beat to shit old Honda.
Which would be fine, if the goal of OLPC was just to give kids a computer, and if Windows were cheaper than Linux. Neither is true. You're passing up a brand new free Ferrari and instead paying $50 for a beat to shit old Honda.
What about CHOICE? These people OPTED to use Windows. We can argue that their children didn't opt to but do you really think that they care? No. I don't.
The point of OLPC was to give them what they need, not what they want. Peru might prefer money going to it's elected officials instead of laptops for kids, that doesn't mean that's what OLPC should be giving them. Again, OLPC wasn't supposed to be giving away a computer that people requested, they were supposed to be providing a tool that these kids could use to improve their situation. Will WinXP do that? Yes. Would Linux do it better? Yes.
The few that will care, later on down the road, will make those choices as well. Until then they have email, browsers that go to wikipedia, search engines to learn more about the world around them, and so much more.
They have that on the Linux install too. Again, the problem isn't that they're getting an "okay" OS, the problem is that they were supposed to get a great OS and aren't.
If people want to eat McDonald's for dinner every day, let them. I'll eat a home cooked meal instead, but it's not my place to evangelize.
But why would anybody sell you hamburger at the grocery store,when everybody gets their hamburgers from McDonalds? Why sell you ketchup when everybody gets their ketchup at McDonalds? Heck, why even sell you spaghetti, when nobody eats spaghetti, they all eat hamburgers at McDonalds?
In a market economy, you choice is limited when the majority of people choose the same thing.
I remember is working in pretty much the same was a gravity according to relativity theory, not that the attractive properties of magnetism were distorting space-time, but the extreme amount of it did. This was nearly a decade ago, though, and I haven't been able to find anything on the internet that backs it up. Perhaps it was just an article in a physics magazine, and not something that was actually proven or observed.
Re:I don't know if I fully agree with that
on
Fire Your IT Boss
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· Score: 1
And yet if he could work without a manager - why have the manager there in the first place?
Go back to my initial statement, good managers manage the people above them, not below them.
All the GP was asking for from a manager was that role to be fulfilled.
That's not how I read it. I took him to mean that he wanted a supervisor, not a manager.
Re:I don't know if I fully agree with that
on
Fire Your IT Boss
·
· Score: 1
It's like coaches for sports. You can even have all that talent, and a good coach can still make a difference. You can have some "star player" that tends to not pass, so you have to yell at him to pass (when appropriate). Then there might be some talented idiot who keeps trying slamdunk when there are more appropriate alternatives.
In that analogy, the Coach is being a supervisor, not a manager. A manager is more like a gardener, who makes sure the plants have what they need to grow, but doesn't tell them how to do it. If a plant doesn't grow, despite having what it needs, the gardener replaces it with a plant that will.
Coaches need to know how to play the sport, gardeners don't need to know how to photosynthesize, they just need to know what a plant needs. Similarly, supervisors need to know how to do their subordinates' jobs, but a manager just needs to know what his subordinates need, and provide them with it.
I could be wrong, but I seem to remember reading about the very minuscule distortions of space-time that are produce around pulsars and other cosmological objects with very intense magnetic fields.
Well, technically they'll bend space, just like gravity does, which will bend the light. However, magnetism is many orders of magnitude less effective at it.
1. How do you bend light without passing it through matter or using a grav field that will crush the experiment?
Magnetic fields will bend light, which I believe is what this paper was based on.
2. If they can bend light, why are we using electron beams for crt's?
Because it's easier to bend a stream of electrons than a stream of photons.
3. If you could build loops of light can they be modulated to store information and read it back again?
I suppose, in theory, but it wouldn't be the most efficient means of data storage.
The reason, I think (IANAP), that this could be important to fusion reactions is that a photon loop within a plasma could heat the plasma to fusion-levels without the plasma trying to burn it's way through the outer walls of the reaction chamber. Current torus designs, I think (IANA nuclear scientist), run the plasma around the inside of a magnetic field, like cars on a racetrack, to get the energies necessary for fusion. This causes that super-hot plasma to push against the outer part of the magnetic field, which has to be extremely strong to contain it.
Re:I don't know if I fully agree with that
on
Fire Your IT Boss
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· Score: 0, Flamebait
Yeah, you'd pretty much suck as an employee. The manager I described would fire you in under a week. If you can't do your job without a manager, then no amount of management will make you good at your job.
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I think it was GTK that was going to do a 3.0 release, not Gnome.
I expect a GUI to be able to control all aspects of the OS that I need to access
Why?
Why is it that windows can actually hide taskbar icons that I don't use.
I assume you mean the system tray. My question is, if you don't use them why would you even want them in the system tray? The very fact that Windows needs a "hide" option is a problem.
By the time Windows 2000 came around, there was nothing in the OS that I could not configure using the GUI.
That's true, but only because you can't configure anything without the GUI. I could remove all of the command line configuration tools from Linux, and then everything that could be configured would be what would configurable via the GUI.
Here's my list of Windows GUI functionality complaints:
Windows only has one panel, ever. You can't remove the start button. You can't move the start button. You can't rearrange the start menu. Application launchers in the start menu are not organized. There are non-launcher entries in the start menu. You can't add your own menu to the panel. In fact, you can only add application launchers to the task bar. Windows doesn't have virtual workspaces. Windows don't shade. Windows can't be made sticky. Window frame can't be changed. Window frame buttons can't be added, removed, or change position.
IBM is pushing their Symphony office suite, which is ODF compatible.
That's exactly what they did: http://www.zarafa.com/content/versions
It's actually McDonalds. Seriously, nobody likes Arby's or Long John Silver's. Not even pirates.
If Microsoft had implemented the usability features that Aero could provide, I would imagine lots of people would use it. I use Compiz-Fusion, not just because of transparent window borders and drop shadows, but because it provides usability features that Metacity doesn't.
In fact, since my browser allows not only tabs but separate windows, "window number" would be another dimension as well, bringing the total to 7.
Tab dimension would uniquely provide that, as you can't have a tab on more than one window.
Think of scrollbars as time-like dimensions.
Yes, and I knew that, but it did mean that you couldn't run Aero on older DX9 hardware, when it really should have been possible to provide the same functionality on a DX9 card.
actually Vista was a good idea.
No it wasn't, and if you'll allow me a minute I'll explain why.
The XP operating system needed to be updated to keep up with the friendly user interface that OSX uses.
The XP operating system was cable of the friendly UI elements of OSX, there were actually many add-ons for XP that offered some of them (admittedly badly). A new OS wasn't necessary to accomplish this. Aero/WDM is actually one of the few things they got right in Vista, unfortunately they decided to tie it to DX10 limiting it's use on older/cheaper hardware, and also neglected to actually implement the OSX-style features it's perfectly capable of. The fact that transparent window frames and Flip3D are all that they ship is a disgrace on it's own.
You see they needed better security and better user interface. It's not an easy thing to accomplish putting the two together.
It's easy if you separate the secure from the insecure. Linux desktops suffered from this problem for a while too, gksudo/kdesudo were not the most user friendly or secure way to accomplish their goals, but PolicyKit is making that experience much better. Microsoft seems to have chosen the easy route, and just tanks the user experience to gain security, which ironically usually makes it less secure.
I'm just saying Microsoft was trying to do alot of things and fucked it up.
Yes they did, however the fuck up was in the design, not the implementation. The very ideas for Vista were bad, and the only good ideas in Vista were left unrealized.
And the thing is....someone, probably multiple people in a committee...actually thought these commercials were a GOOD idea!!
Probably the same committee that thought Vista was a good idea.
The article says that software is for the "classroom", not the OLPC. I'm nearly positive that MS Office 2003 won't be usable on the laptop, and I'd bet money that the "Student Innovation Suite" won't either.
I will respond because I didn't make my initial statement without thinking. Greater than what they had - meaning more than. Before this they had nothing available probably. This is not less than nothing.
No, before this they had an OLPC with Linux available. It's kind of like saying I'll give you a Ferrari, then later on saying I'm actually going to give you a Yugo. Sure, a Yugo is more than nothing, but it is less that what you were initially going to get.
This computer can still be a learning tool for children. This tool can still teach critical thinking.
How? What is shipping with WinXP on this laptop that will teach critical thinking?
One does NOT need to be using an open source platform to engage in critical thinking.
True, they could have chosen something like Solaris, or forked and closed a BSD like Apple did, and still had most of the benefit they got from Linux. But WinXP is a different beast. You get no compiler. The interface is compiled and you don't have the source. The apps are compiled and you don't have the source. Is there a single program (besides BAT files) on the WinXP that will be shipped with the OLPC that can be changed?
You can do just fine in getting from Point A to Point B in a beat to shit old Honda.
Which would be fine, if the goal of OLPC was just to give kids a computer, and if Windows were cheaper than Linux. Neither is true. You're passing up a brand new free Ferrari and instead paying $50 for a beat to shit old Honda.
What about CHOICE? These people OPTED to use Windows. We can argue that their children didn't opt to but do you really think that they care? No. I don't.
The point of OLPC was to give them what they need, not what they want. Peru might prefer money going to it's elected officials instead of laptops for kids, that doesn't mean that's what OLPC should be giving them. Again, OLPC wasn't supposed to be giving away a computer that people requested, they were supposed to be providing a tool that these kids could use to improve their situation. Will WinXP do that? Yes. Would Linux do it better? Yes.
The few that will care, later on down the road, will make those choices as well. Until then they have email, browsers that go to wikipedia, search engines to learn more about the world around them, and so much more.
They have that on the Linux install too. Again, the problem isn't that they're getting an "okay" OS, the problem is that they were supposed to get a great OS and aren't.
What learning tools are being shipped with WinXP on these laptops?
This isn't where I originally read this, but it's all I could find online:
http://www.astronomycafe.net/qadir/q1347.html
If people want to eat McDonald's for dinner every day, let them. I'll eat a home cooked meal instead, but it's not my place to evangelize.
But why would anybody sell you hamburger at the grocery store,when everybody gets their hamburgers from McDonalds? Why sell you ketchup when everybody gets their ketchup at McDonalds? Heck, why even sell you spaghetti, when nobody eats spaghetti, they all eat hamburgers at McDonalds?
In a market economy, you choice is limited when the majority of people choose the same thing.
I remember is working in pretty much the same was a gravity according to relativity theory, not that the attractive properties of magnetism were distorting space-time, but the extreme amount of it did. This was nearly a decade ago, though, and I haven't been able to find anything on the internet that backs it up. Perhaps it was just an article in a physics magazine, and not something that was actually proven or observed.
And yet if he could work without a manager - why have the manager there in the first place?
Go back to my initial statement, good managers manage the people above them, not below them.
All the GP was asking for from a manager was that role to be fulfilled.
That's not how I read it. I took him to mean that he wanted a supervisor, not a manager.
It's like coaches for sports. You can even have all that talent, and a good coach can still make a difference. You can have some "star player" that tends to not pass, so you have to yell at him to pass (when appropriate). Then there might be some talented idiot who keeps trying slamdunk when there are more appropriate alternatives.
In that analogy, the Coach is being a supervisor, not a manager. A manager is more like a gardener, who makes sure the plants have what they need to grow, but doesn't tell them how to do it. If a plant doesn't grow, despite having what it needs, the gardener replaces it with a plant that will.
Coaches need to know how to play the sport, gardeners don't need to know how to photosynthesize, they just need to know what a plant needs. Similarly, supervisors need to know how to do their subordinates' jobs, but a manager just needs to know what his subordinates need, and provide them with it.
I could be wrong, but I seem to remember reading about the very minuscule distortions of space-time that are produce around pulsars and other cosmological objects with very intense magnetic fields.
Well, technically they'll bend space, just like gravity does, which will bend the light. However, magnetism is many orders of magnitude less effective at it.
1. How do you bend light without passing it through matter or using a grav field that will crush the experiment?
Magnetic fields will bend light, which I believe is what this paper was based on.
2. If they can bend light, why are we using electron beams for crt's?
Because it's easier to bend a stream of electrons than a stream of photons.
3. If you could build loops of light can they be modulated to store information and read it back again?
I suppose, in theory, but it wouldn't be the most efficient means of data storage.
The reason, I think (IANAP), that this could be important to fusion reactions is that a photon loop within a plasma could heat the plasma to fusion-levels without the plasma trying to burn it's way through the outer walls of the reaction chamber. Current torus designs, I think (IANA nuclear scientist), run the plasma around the inside of a magnetic field, like cars on a racetrack, to get the energies necessary for fusion. This causes that super-hot plasma to push against the outer part of the magnetic field, which has to be extremely strong to contain it.
Yeah, you'd pretty much suck as an employee. The manager I described would fire you in under a week. If you can't do your job without a manager, then no amount of management will make you good at your job.