Neither Gnome 3 nor Unity is acceptable in their present incarnations.
but Gnome 3, with just a couple extensions, works quite nicely for a keyboard-oriented kinda guy like me.
Do you have one monitor, or several? If you got Gnome 3 to work acceptably with multiple monitors, which extensions were helpful? I ask, because its appalling behavior with dual monitors was a stumbling block which I never overcame (maybe it works OK with the right add-ons, but I gave up in disgust after enduring repeated failures).
Moreover, Elop did his best to sink their flagship MeeGo device, the N9, by deliberately only selling it in low-income, low smartphone areas rather than the core markets you'd expect to place any device you actually want to succeed - and despite being made into a pariah, it outsells their entire Lumia (Windows) line 3 to 1. This is a device that that Nokia don't even list on their website as a product, but it still outsells all their Windows phones combined?
Uh, telling a little white lie on geography can get you to the N9 pages. It's not limited to low-income low-smartphone countries either, but it's certainly not listed for the largest markets (US, UK, Germany, etc.). However, it is shown for Sweden and Finland. Since you likely are not linguistically comfortable with either Swedish or Finnish, the Google translate versions are here and here respectively.
Selling what people want to buy! I can tell you, this does not bode well.
But perhaps it explains why they sell so many unpromoted and rarely discounted N9 phones compared to heavily promoted and always cheaper Lumias (at least in markets where the N9 is available). I still have not seen anyone actually using or even visibly carrying a Lumia, while I've noticed a fair number of N9s in use. Of course the N9s have only a small fraction of the prevalence of other smartphones. From my unscientific observations made in frequent transits through airports in Europe and North America in the last several months, Android > Symbian[*] > iPhone[*] > Blackberry > N9 > WP7=0.
[*] I go through through airports in the EU far more than in the US/Canada, which colors my observations. In North American airports, iPhone >> Symbian.
Linux is great if your are compiling from source or installing from rpm/deb
But rpm and deb cover by far the majority of installations, and a bash script for binary installation will cover the rest. I use commercial (purchased) software on Linux, and it comes in rpm, deb, and bin forms with a bash script. Examples: Mathematica, Corel AfterShot Pro (and Bibble 5 Pro). Why so few paid-for packages? Because most of my needs are covered by free and libre software (GIMP, Inkscape, Scribus, Libre Office, Thunderbird, Firefox, etc.).
So your statement should be "Linux is great if you are installing from rpm/deb/bin". Which means, for me, that Linux is great, and a hell of a better bargain[*] than Windows or OSX!
[*] The better security model - what, not much need for anti-virus? - is yet another bonus. However, due to incorrigible paranoia I have still installed various script-blockers as well as AVG and use a comprehensive list of exclusions for iptables on all the systems at home.
Ahem, illegal Mexican immigrant Inquisition. It's all part of the fun/job for DHS/CBP folks!
Note: the "illegal" mostly applies to the "Inquisition" in the above statement...
Definitely. I could feel his agony, having tried Gnome 3 myself on Fedora in a VM. His pain threshold is obviously much higher than mine, as he stuck to it for a couple of months...
Is XFCE the best desktop alternative to gnome3/unity for PCs intended to be used with a mouse and not touchscreen?
Both xfce and KDE would be good choices. Neither Gnome 3 nor Unity is acceptable in their present incarnations.
I've converted our Ubuntu gnome desktops to xfce, with a little customization (preparing for the 10.04 LTS to 12.04 LTS migration). The laptop has been xfce for a while. From many trials using VMs, my opinion is that Unity is an abomination - nobody in the family likes it - and Gnome 3 sucks on multi-display systems.
Perhaps their efforts are fueled by a more private agenda, but I still see Google as the least evil in the crowd.
In fact, the Google Amicus brief is quite candid about Google's interest in the case. It's clearly explained in the very first section, right after the tables of contents and authorities, and before any of the brief's arguments.
Because when I think "Google," I think "Oh, hey, golly, THERE's a corporation that's looking out for my rights, yes-sir-ree-bob!"
Your point is valid, unfortunately, when it comes to privacy rights (essentially nonexistent in the US).
I say "unfortunately" because it seems that on most other measures Google is probably the least evil of the large corporations (most are incomparably worse), and tries occasionally to do something we can cheer them for.
You're welcome:) Here is another article you might like, which I inadvertently omitted. It was supposed to be linked to the "medical fields" text, but I somehow left it out... And that's not even getting into the widespread misuse of the 95% confidence level (the linked page misuses it, even in criticizing its misuse by others, how about that for irony).
Out of the nearly 12 million flights per year, there was a problem in 10. So when is less than 1 in a million "pretty darn common"?
It's not so much airplane incidents being common as the perceived severity of potential outcome of an incident. Granted, there have been no nasty incidents reported, but the perception is important among flight crews as well as passengers.
The fatal accident rate in the ten years 2002-2011 for airlines in North America was well below 1 in 20 million (actually only 2 airlines had such crashes, and even for them it was rather less than 1 in a million flights). Similar statistics apply to Europe and indeed to airlines across most of the world. Only outliers such as Aeroflot, Air India, China Airlines, Iran Air, Kenya Airlines, PIA, and TACA have rates above 1 in a million, and even for them it's not above 3 in a million flights.
Airline flight and cabin crews are perhaps even keener than passengers to prevent any increase in these rates, and to avoid any risk of increase. Everything which is not proven safe, is considered unsafe, in their view.
A lot of people don't realize that the plane they're flying in very possibly was designed and built before they were born.
Really? That's very interesting. I didn't know they were building jet airliners during WWII.
Well, the de Havilland Comet (version 1 with square windows and metal fatigue problems) was in commercial service before I was born. I think they were also all taken out of service before I was born. Maybe the Tupolev Tu-104 was also in commercial service before my birth, but I've never flown in one, and likely never will since they were all retired long ago.
The phrase "the public interest" does not mean the same thing to Government officials and to the actual Public. It's a sort of catch-all reason for hiding information or bending rules or otherwise ignoring the (usually legitimate) wishes of a group or indeed of the populace.
Mod +insightful.
Harper appears to lack a human face entirely. In its stead there appears to be an asshole (of goatse proportions) uncontrollably spasming his vile ordure on the people of Canada.
That a single study showing positive results for ESP was flawed in some way, is a natural starting position.
Ah, but Bem's 2011 paper was not flawed at all. He successfully and convincingly demonstrated his lack of understanding of statistical techniques and his ineptitude in application of said techniques. He also illustrated the failings of the peer review process in minor fields. His incompetent attempt at "validation" of ESP was the most persuasive evidence of all, in fact.
This overwhelming ignorance of statistics is prevalent throughout the social "sciences" and is almost as widespread in medical fields. Bem is not the first to misunderstand and misuse t-tests or to fail to distinguish exploratory and confirmatory analysis. Those in fundamentally innumerate fields should not play with numbers (especially using packaged statistical software) except under supervision of a qualified adult. They are emphatically not qualified to certify themselves as competent in statistics or any other area outside their specialization.
I just paid $1200 for a keyboard, but it came with a free PC with Windows installed on it attached to the end of it!
Hah! I paid that much for a mouse a couple of years ago - and it was wireless so nothing was attached to it other than a cheap battery. To sweeten the deal, the store threw in a quad-core PC without OS, dual HD displays, 8GB RAM, 2x1TB disks, etc. It runs Xubuntu 10.04 with Compiz.
More seriously, if I had wanted Windows on that PC, it would have cost euro100 more: that's the amount they chopped off the price when I said I didn't want any OS. Of course, it would have been an OEM version of Windows with a DVD and largely without crapware.
For example, by allowing US companies to sell to other countries freely, but putting up roadblocks when other countries try to sell their goods in the US. The US benefits because its companies are selling more, while being protected from being undercut in other markets by what that country tries to sell the US.
Since it did happen, it appears he lives in the real world. The real question though, is what world is it that you live in?
Perhaps GP lives in a more civilized/honest part of the world than GGP. Thus his experience suggests and his expectation is that the vast majority of people are honest.
I dropped my passport once in Tampere (EU passport, possibly worth a bit to a sleazeball), and got it back by asking at some shops I had been in earlier. It had apparently been found on the ground outside and been handed in to the shopkeeper. Where I work (Kuopio, about 400 people in the office, and lots of visitors), it is unheard-of for things to be taken without permission, and people leave stuff lying around quite often. If a wallet is left on a desk in an open-plan area, it will still be there the next day. A high-end laptop can be left anywhere at a customer's factory in the Nordic countries, and it will still be there when you return. On the other hand, if we visit the U.K. or the U.S., we're supposed to secure any laptop with a locking cable if we leave it for even a few minutes; and that's company policy.
While it may be classified as stealing by law, morally it's fine.
Only if you consider stealing to be morally acceptable.
Shame morality and the law never seem to match.
They do, in this case.
If you find a valuable item which is likely someone else's lost or misplaced property, you're supposed to bring it to a lost property office or to a police station. If it remains unclaimed after some time, it becomes yours. I have done exactly this a couple of times, and in both cases the original owner claimed the property. Clearly, it had been misplaced, not discarded. In one case, the person who reclaimed a wallet which had no identifying material (no credit cards, driving license, etc.) gave a couple of pounds to me as a reward, which was delivered anonymously via the police.
Slashdot Mirror
Neither Gnome 3 nor Unity is acceptable in their present incarnations.
but Gnome 3, with just a couple extensions, works quite nicely for a keyboard-oriented kinda guy like me.
Do you have one monitor, or several? If you got Gnome 3 to work acceptably with multiple monitors, which extensions were helpful? I ask, because its appalling behavior with dual monitors was a stumbling block which I never overcame (maybe it works OK with the right add-ons, but I gave up in disgust after enduring repeated failures).
Moreover, Elop did his best to sink their flagship MeeGo device, the N9, by deliberately only selling it in low-income, low smartphone areas rather than the core markets you'd expect to place any device you actually want to succeed - and despite being made into a pariah, it outsells their entire Lumia (Windows) line 3 to 1. This is a device that that Nokia don't even list on their website as a product, but it still outsells all their Windows phones combined?
Uh, telling a little white lie on geography can get you to the N9 pages. It's not limited to low-income low-smartphone countries either, but it's certainly not listed for the largest markets (US, UK, Germany, etc.). However, it is shown for Sweden and Finland. Since you likely are not linguistically comfortable with either Swedish or Finnish, the Google translate versions are here and here respectively.
Actualy posessed of such gall!
Selling what people want to buy! I can tell you, this does not bode well.
But perhaps it explains why they sell so many unpromoted and rarely discounted N9 phones compared to heavily promoted and always cheaper Lumias (at least in markets where the N9 is available). I still have not seen anyone actually using or even visibly carrying a Lumia, while I've noticed a fair number of N9s in use. Of course the N9s have only a small fraction of the prevalence of other smartphones. From my unscientific observations made in frequent transits through airports in Europe and North America in the last several months, Android > Symbian[*] > iPhone[*] > Blackberry > N9 > WP7=0.
[*] I go through through airports in the EU far more than in the US/Canada, which colors my observations. In North American airports, iPhone >> Symbian.
Linux is great if your are compiling from source or installing from rpm/deb
But rpm and deb cover by far the majority of installations, and a bash script for binary installation will cover the rest. I use commercial (purchased) software on Linux, and it comes in rpm, deb, and bin forms with a bash script. Examples: Mathematica, Corel AfterShot Pro (and Bibble 5 Pro). Why so few paid-for packages? Because most of my needs are covered by free and libre software (GIMP, Inkscape, Scribus, Libre Office, Thunderbird, Firefox, etc.).
So your statement should be "Linux is great if you are installing from rpm/deb/bin". Which means, for me, that Linux is great, and a hell of a better bargain[*] than Windows or OSX!
[*] The better security model - what, not much need for anti-virus? - is yet another bonus. However, due to incorrigible paranoia I have still installed various script-blockers as well as AVG and use a comprehensive list of exclusions for iptables on all the systems at home.
Ooh, so USA == Spanish Inquisition Land!
Ahem, illegal Mexican immigrant Inquisition. It's all part of the fun/job for DHS/CBP folks!
Note: the "illegal" mostly applies to the "Inquisition" in the above statement...
Tom's Hardware scored a few points with me today.
Definitely. I could feel his agony, having tried Gnome 3 myself on Fedora in a VM. His pain threshold is obviously much higher than mine, as he stuck to it for a couple of months...
Is XFCE the best desktop alternative to gnome3/unity for PCs intended to be used with a mouse and not touchscreen?
Both xfce and KDE would be good choices. Neither Gnome 3 nor Unity is acceptable in their present incarnations.
I've converted our Ubuntu gnome desktops to xfce, with a little customization (preparing for the 10.04 LTS to 12.04 LTS migration). The laptop has been xfce for a while. From many trials using VMs, my opinion is that Unity is an abomination - nobody in the family likes it - and Gnome 3 sucks on multi-display systems.
Finland was even ahead of Denmark and Sweden on this front. Anyone with an up-to-date comparison between different countries?
the exterior of my wessel was sturdy and
Pavel Chekov... is that you?
Perhaps their efforts are fueled by a more private agenda, but I still see Google as the least evil in the crowd.
In fact, the Google Amicus brief is quite candid about Google's interest in the case. It's clearly explained in the very first section, right after the tables of contents and authorities, and before any of the brief's arguments.
Because when I think "Google," I think "Oh, hey, golly, THERE's a corporation that's looking out for my rights, yes-sir-ree-bob!"
Your point is valid, unfortunately, when it comes to privacy rights (essentially nonexistent in the US).
I say "unfortunately" because it seems that on most other measures Google is probably the least evil of the large corporations (most are incomparably worse), and tries occasionally to do something we can cheer them for.
Many thanks for those links.
You're welcome :)
Here is another article you might like, which I inadvertently omitted. It was supposed to be linked to the "medical fields" text, but I somehow left it out... And that's not even getting into the widespread misuse of the 95% confidence level (the linked page misuses it, even in criticizing its misuse by others, how about that for irony).
Out of the nearly 12 million flights per year, there was a problem in 10. So when is less than 1 in a million "pretty darn common"?
It's not so much airplane incidents being common as the perceived severity of potential outcome of an incident. Granted, there have been no nasty incidents reported, but the perception is important among flight crews as well as passengers.
The fatal accident rate in the ten years 2002-2011 for airlines in North America was well below 1 in 20 million (actually only 2 airlines had such crashes, and even for them it was rather less than 1 in a million flights). Similar statistics apply to Europe and indeed to airlines across most of the world. Only outliers such as Aeroflot, Air India, China Airlines, Iran Air, Kenya Airlines, PIA, and TACA have rates above 1 in a million, and even for them it's not above 3 in a million flights.
Airline flight and cabin crews are perhaps even keener than passengers to prevent any increase in these rates, and to avoid any risk of increase. Everything which is not proven safe, is considered unsafe, in their view.
A lot of people don't realize that the plane they're flying in very possibly was designed and built before they were born.
Really? That's very interesting. I didn't know they were building jet airliners during WWII.
Well, the de Havilland Comet (version 1 with square windows and metal fatigue problems) was in commercial service before I was born. I think they were also all taken out of service before I was born. Maybe the Tupolev Tu-104 was also in commercial service before my birth, but I've never flown in one, and likely never will since they were all retired long ago.
The phrase "the public interest" does not mean the same thing to Government officials and to the actual Public. It's a sort of catch-all reason for hiding information or bending rules or otherwise ignoring the (usually legitimate) wishes of a group or indeed of the populace.
Harper isn't a two faced asshole.
Mod +insightful.
Harper appears to lack a human face entirely. In its stead there appears to be an asshole (of goatse proportions) uncontrollably spasming his vile ordure on the people of Canada.
That a single study showing positive results for ESP was flawed in some way, is a natural starting position.
Ah, but Bem's 2011 paper was not flawed at all. He successfully and convincingly demonstrated his lack of understanding of statistical techniques and his ineptitude in application of said techniques. He also illustrated the failings of the peer review process in minor fields. His incompetent attempt at "validation" of ESP was the most persuasive evidence of all, in fact.
This overwhelming ignorance of statistics is prevalent throughout the social "sciences" and is almost as widespread in medical fields. Bem is not the first to misunderstand and misuse t-tests or to fail to distinguish exploratory and confirmatory analysis. Those in fundamentally innumerate fields should not play with numbers (especially using packaged statistical software) except under supervision of a qualified adult. They are emphatically not qualified to certify themselves as competent in statistics or any other area outside their specialization.
Why would anyone want to track Stephen Wolfram anyway?
I just paid $1200 for a keyboard, but it came with a free PC with Windows installed on it attached to the end of it!
Hah! I paid that much for a mouse a couple of years ago - and it was wireless so nothing was attached to it other than a cheap battery. To sweeten the deal, the store threw in a quad-core PC without OS, dual HD displays, 8GB RAM, 2x1TB disks, etc. It runs Xubuntu 10.04 with Compiz.
More seriously, if I had wanted Windows on that PC, it would have cost euro100 more: that's the amount they chopped off the price when I said I didn't want any OS. Of course, it would have been an OEM version of Windows with a DVD and largely without crapware.
before understanding this is the UK and you were referring to money. ... (Right?)
Referring to money, yes, but not in the UK.
FYI, the UK is not the only place where "pound" can refer to money today or in the fairly recent past (e.g. Cyprus & Ireland).
If I had mod points they would go to this.
Vaseline might be even more helpful...
Here in America, the congress gets 52 weeks paid vacation.
Hey, that's only 364 days! The 365th day must be a Sunday or public holiday or something.
For example, by allowing US companies to sell to other countries freely, but putting up roadblocks when other countries try to sell their goods in the US. The US benefits because its companies are selling more, while being protected from being undercut in other markets by what that country tries to sell the US.
How do you reconcile this opinion with the US trade deficit?
Since it did happen, it appears he lives in the real world. The real question though, is what world is it that you live in?
Perhaps GP lives in a more civilized/honest part of the world than GGP. Thus his experience suggests and his expectation is that the vast majority of people are honest.
I dropped my passport once in Tampere (EU passport, possibly worth a bit to a sleazeball), and got it back by asking at some shops I had been in earlier. It had apparently been found on the ground outside and been handed in to the shopkeeper. Where I work (Kuopio, about 400 people in the office, and lots of visitors), it is unheard-of for things to be taken without permission, and people leave stuff lying around quite often. If a wallet is left on a desk in an open-plan area, it will still be there the next day. A high-end laptop can be left anywhere at a customer's factory in the Nordic countries, and it will still be there when you return. On the other hand, if we visit the U.K. or the U.S., we're supposed to secure any laptop with a locking cable if we leave it for even a few minutes; and that's company policy.
While it may be classified as stealing by law, morally it's fine.
Only if you consider stealing to be morally acceptable.
Shame morality and the law never seem to match.
They do, in this case.
If you find a valuable item which is likely someone else's lost or misplaced property, you're supposed to bring it to a lost property office or to a police station. If it remains unclaimed after some time, it becomes yours. I have done exactly this a couple of times, and in both cases the original owner claimed the property. Clearly, it had been misplaced, not discarded. In one case, the person who reclaimed a wallet which had no identifying material (no credit cards, driving license, etc.) gave a couple of pounds to me as a reward, which was delivered anonymously via the police.