Why do you say it is a hobbyist alternative? The institute where I studied (the best reputed place to study physics and engineering on my country) not only does support Linux, it is the only operative system available on the computer lab. There are a few windows computers available for some very specific programs, but most of the desktop computers (and servers, of course)
The reason for this is because it is the best solution for our needs, the most affordable one (best for the needs of the institution) and easier to maintain.
I used to have a monitor connected to my wii. Then I bought a Samsung LCD TV and I noticed the lag. Not directly, but indirectly. Both my partner and I noticed that we got worst in playing. We seemed to miss the markers every time.
I went through the manual and didn't find any lag data, but I found a "game mode" option. Turning the option on improved the experience and our scores. So I guess that you should read the manual before you buy an LCD TV to check if it has a "game mode". I read that this mode reduces the post processing in the TV so the signal is presented on screen faster.
Another place where I found lag was an issue is on sound. I thought about replacing two of my Home Theater's speakers by my TV's frontal speakers, sending those two channels from my PC to my TV and the rest of the channels to the HT. However, the sound on the TV was delayed by a small fraction of a second. Enough to be audible. You can hear an "echo". This could be solved right away if the TV had latency data, so I could force a delay on the rest of the sound channels. Too bad my TV doesn't have this information.
By the way, my TV is a Samsung 40' Full HD. Can't remember the exact model right now.
My guess is they won't be able to cope with an aggressive working environment. But why should they? I know, for example, that I'm not able to handle an aggressive working environment. Part of the problem is that, even if I wasn't homeschooled, my parents played a major part on my education. So when I got to school, I had a learning philosophy that wasn't well received at highschool. I can't say I was a nerd, I didn't study that much, but I payed attention at class, was inquisitive and passionate about many subjects (the opposite of cool for teenagers). The end result was that once I got out of College, after having a master degree and leaving a PhD, I was very anxious about getting a job. I knew I wouldn't be able to cope with aggressive working environments and stepping on coworker's heads to make my way on life.
My solution was to work at home, finding my own way, away from mean people. It's worked fine to me so far, I was offered a job on a startup, which I accepted, opened a shop with another person using my own savings (ok, the shop thing didn't go so well, but I tried it and I learned many things).
Same goes for personal relationships, I only have friends. And I'm with my partner because we both want. There wasn't any fighting to get together, no tormented relationships, no game of power, no agendas, we just knew each other and knew we were meant for each other, one month and we were living together. I'm not able to cope with shit (I had to deal with shitty people, and my solution was ending the relationship).
Maybe if more people were raised like I was, being "aggressive" and having "endurance" wouldn't be so valued as it is right now.
>but many parents think they know a lot more about a subject than they really do.
So do teachers.
If I ever get to be a parent I would encourage my kid to research on his questions and get multiple opinions, with my aid at first, of course. But the best way to know something is not asking somebody and taking his answer for truth without further research.
That's a lame excuse, Japan would have shitted their pants even if the USA had thrown the bomb on a non populated target, or at least a non civilian target. I don't know what happens with slashdot today, but tagging you insightful is too much.
It's not about legality, it is about morality. As somebody stated on this thread (and was modded flamebait!) an apology from a state, church or organization for something they did in the past is a big symbolic thing. Specially if the wound is still open. This is about what the British government did to homosexuals in the not so far past (there are still people alive from that time, you know), and guess what... what they did was legal, that was the point.
An apology means "we acknowledge that the laws we enforced in the past were wrong, we are aware of that and will try to not repeat that in the present".
I'm currently downloading from a torrent I got from TPB before "the incident". The only thing I noticed is that the piratebay tracker is unreachable... but there are other trackers on the same list. Don't know where the program got those trackers (plus DHT and peer exchange) or how they got there... it just works.
Maybe they shouldn't have made "The greatest RPG ever", which probably will be played by players smart enough to know how to download it and with a lot of free time to play it (and take the time to find it/download/crack it). Instead, they could have just made just another Diablo clone with flashy CGI and then market it to a broader audience.
I know, making "The greatest RPG ever" sounds like fun and like a cool thing to do... But, as you mentioned, it doesn't seem to work.
I think most democracies allow revision of all its laws. Not force it, but just leave the door open to it.
This is the first time I hear about a "self perpetuating law". And the fact that this comes from a Latin American country is no surprise (I'm from Argentina).
"An entire country decided this was a good thing to make permanent. It's their playpen, their choice."
You forgot the "Once"... "Once, an entire country decided this was a good thing to make permanent. It's their playpen, their choice."
What kind of stupidity is making a law and forcing future generations to obey it. You are basically denying a say to future generations.
I understand you sympathize with that law, but I don't think it is fair to force a law in this way. It is not moral since it denies the chance of dialog and evolution in culture.
If people wants to change a law, so be it. Times change.
So, which one is faking the results? the president or the opposition... I mean, those could as well be fake results in order to justify the military action in the eyes of international opinion.
You don't have to have everybody on your facebook account. I know there is people I found on facebook but I never asked to join me.
And maybe you call it fake because you think of it as a friendship. It is not a friendship, it is a relationship, period. Of course I have friends, and I keep in touch with those. But there are also this people who "was cool back then", and now I have them on my facebook account, and I get interesing feedback when I post a fortune cookie. Not a disruptive technology, I know... but it is entertaining.
Anyway, you don't have to do it. Not everything is for everybody. I was just sharing my experience. It is a good tool for my needs and personality. Maybe it is not for yours.
In my case, I changed city about 6 times, and changed school about 5 times. (no, I wasn't raised in a circus) So there is a lot of people that I knew but lost track of.
I joined Facebook some weeks ago and now I have about 50 "recovered friends", that is, people that used to be my friends but then I lost touch. I chatted with some, said happy birthday to others, etc.
It would have been more difficult finding them without facebook, since finding each friend manually would be a PITA, and also very non-casual. I mean, how do you get in touch with a kindergarden friend? You don't just call him and tell him "hey, I noticed your name was on the phone book and so I called to say hi". Instead, requesting to "become friend" over facebook is something casual.
Once you get in touch you can just write silly things like "I hate this TV host" or "Today I feel sad". Or you can post old photos or whatever. That gives your friends a chance to see what you are up to and maybe start an actual conversation or schedule a real life encounter (want to come to my birthday this saturday?) And since you are broadcasting to everybody you don't put anyone in particular in the position of having to answer.
It is similar to an msn account, only that you can just broadcast whatever you want and wait to see if somebody answers. Just like bloging, but directed to people you kind-of-know.
I think having an open standard to such service would be great, just as it would be great to have an open standard to IM, and just as it is great to have an open standard to email. Maybe Wave will change this in the near future. I think of this as a way of taking my friends with me wherever I go.
The advantage of facebook is that they have a huge database of "name"->"email" entries, so once you sign up you find out hundreds of people you know. In part, their success is due to spamish practices like sending invitations to all your IM or email contacts (at your request).
There are probably other uses, but this is one I can think of.
Haven't you heard? it is called "the moral standard of Mother Nature". Things have a natural order, which is eternal and pure, and humans (specially scientists) try to subvert it all the time. That usually goes very wrong, because crime doesn't pay.
We suffer from a Judeochristian upbringing, which means we were fed with guilt and the need to punish things that were tagged as "sin" for reasons that don't apply in modern times.
We tend to see things that cause pleasure as somehow wrong and deserving of punishment. And when something that feels good can actually harm you, many people quickly points fingers and start talking in terms of "due punishment". For example, in this case, yes, it is bad to eat too much because it will cause obesity and all its attached problems. But that's the only reason, there isn't anything inherently wrong with eating too much, but somehow we tend to think on those terms. If you get rid of obesity, why not eating a lot if you feel like it?
Same goes to sex, of course it is bad to go around having sex, but only because you can caught something. But people quickly forgets that and start thinking in terms of punishment, as if caughting an STD was some kind of punishment for something that is inherently (or morally) wrong about casual sex. You'll see the same argument whenever there is an "HIV vaccine" article here on slashdot, some people starts complaining that "they had it coming" and that now they'll go "screwing around".
It is like saying a person "had it coming" getting flu because they didn't wear gloves and surgical masks, and finding a cure for flu is bad because it will mean people will start walking around "unprotected".
In MS Office, exporting options seems always like an afterthought, and the action of exporting tries to scare you away with messages saying that the exported file 'could' be flawed (without explaining how)... plain FUD.
On the other hand, google provides file support for MS Office, Open Office, cvs, pdf, text. And doesn't make any deal about it.
Yes, you are right in the fact that a cost to move from Google Docs to another set of applications would cost. But that is true for all office packs, including 'libre' ones.
I would love to see (maybe it is somewhere already) an Open Office extension that used Google Docs API to access your files. That would be a good option for migration and also a great option to allow you to use your documents on the desktop. Google Docs is still too slow on my computer (for some documents), even using Chrome to run it.
PD: there is at least one extension that allows import/export, same thing for MS Office.
Slashdot Mirror
Why do you say it is a hobbyist alternative? The institute where I studied (the best reputed place to study physics and engineering on my country) not only does support Linux, it is the only operative system available on the computer lab. There are a few windows computers available for some very specific programs, but most of the desktop computers (and servers, of course)
The reason for this is because it is the best solution for our needs, the most affordable one (best for the needs of the institution) and easier to maintain.
I used to have a monitor connected to my wii. Then I bought a Samsung LCD TV and I noticed the lag. Not directly, but indirectly. Both my partner and I noticed that we got worst in playing. We seemed to miss the markers every time.
I went through the manual and didn't find any lag data, but I found a "game mode" option. Turning the option on improved the experience and our scores. So I guess that you should read the manual before you buy an LCD TV to check if it has a "game mode". I read that this mode reduces the post processing in the TV so the signal is presented on screen faster.
Another place where I found lag was an issue is on sound. I thought about replacing two of my Home Theater's speakers by my TV's frontal speakers, sending those two channels from my PC to my TV and the rest of the channels to the HT. However, the sound on the TV was delayed by a small fraction of a second. Enough to be audible. You can hear an "echo". This could be solved right away if the TV had latency data, so I could force a delay on the rest of the sound channels. Too bad my TV doesn't have this information.
By the way, my TV is a Samsung 40' Full HD. Can't remember the exact model right now.
This is not a technology news site. This is a "news for nerds" site.
Many nerds would be interested in homeschooling because they (or we) would think we can do a better job than teachers at raising our kids.
There's only one way to know...
My guess is they won't be able to cope with an aggressive working environment. But why should they? I know, for example, that I'm not able to handle an aggressive working environment. Part of the problem is that, even if I wasn't homeschooled, my parents played a major part on my education. So when I got to school, I had a learning philosophy that wasn't well received at highschool. I can't say I was a nerd, I didn't study that much, but I payed attention at class, was inquisitive and passionate about many subjects (the opposite of cool for teenagers). The end result was that once I got out of College, after having a master degree and leaving a PhD, I was very anxious about getting a job. I knew I wouldn't be able to cope with aggressive working environments and stepping on coworker's heads to make my way on life.
My solution was to work at home, finding my own way, away from mean people. It's worked fine to me so far, I was offered a job on a startup, which I accepted, opened a shop with another person using my own savings (ok, the shop thing didn't go so well, but I tried it and I learned many things).
Same goes for personal relationships, I only have friends. And I'm with my partner because we both want. There wasn't any fighting to get together, no tormented relationships, no game of power, no agendas, we just knew each other and knew we were meant for each other, one month and we were living together. I'm not able to cope with shit (I had to deal with shitty people, and my solution was ending the relationship).
Maybe if more people were raised like I was, being "aggressive" and having "endurance" wouldn't be so valued as it is right now.
>but many parents think they know a lot more about a subject than they really do.
So do teachers.
If I ever get to be a parent I would encourage my kid to research on his questions and get multiple opinions, with my aid at first, of course. But the best way to know something is not asking somebody and taking his answer for truth without further research.
Or both finger pointing and solving the problem.
Or, he will be more sloppy because he knows there won't be any repercussions.
Instead, if I fire him, that will mean the other employees will be extra careful and learn from the fired one mistake.
Playing devil's advocate here...
That's a lame excuse, Japan would have shitted their pants even if the USA had thrown the bomb on a non populated target, or at least a non civilian target. I don't know what happens with slashdot today, but tagging you insightful is too much.
It's not about legality, it is about morality. As somebody stated on this thread (and was modded flamebait!) an apology from a state, church or organization for something they did in the past is a big symbolic thing. Specially if the wound is still open. This is about what the British government did to homosexuals in the not so far past (there are still people alive from that time, you know), and guess what... what they did was legal, that was the point.
An apology means "we acknowledge that the laws we enforced in the past were wrong, we are aware of that and will try to not repeat that in the present".
I'm currently downloading from a torrent I got from TPB before "the incident". The only thing I noticed is that the piratebay tracker is unreachable... but there are other trackers on the same list. Don't know where the program got those trackers (plus DHT and peer exchange) or how they got there... it just works.
"how is it going to work for software or movies that cost tens of millions (or more) to produce?"
Maybe this will be the end of it. Big deal.
Why aren't they doing it then?
Maybe they shouldn't have made "The greatest RPG ever", which probably will be played by players smart enough to know how to download it and with a lot of free time to play it (and take the time to find it/download/crack it). Instead, they could have just made just another Diablo clone with flashy CGI and then market it to a broader audience.
I know, making "The greatest RPG ever" sounds like fun and like a cool thing to do... But, as you mentioned, it doesn't seem to work.
I think most democracies allow revision of all its laws. Not force it, but just leave the door open to it.
This is the first time I hear about a "self perpetuating law". And the fact that this comes from a Latin American country is no surprise (I'm from Argentina).
"An entire country decided this was a good thing to make permanent. It's their playpen, their choice."
You forgot the "Once"... "Once, an entire country decided this was a good thing to make permanent. It's their playpen, their choice."
What kind of stupidity is making a law and forcing future generations to obey it. You are basically denying a say to future generations.
I understand you sympathize with that law, but I don't think it is fair to force a law in this way. It is not moral since it denies the chance of dialog and evolution in culture.
If people wants to change a law, so be it. Times change.
So, which one is faking the results? the president or the opposition... I mean, those could as well be fake results in order to justify the military action in the eyes of international opinion.
Laws are human, and thus will be wrong from time to time.
In this case, I think a law stating you can't "propose to change it" is preposterous.
So using the argument that "it is constitutional" is technically correct, but not the point at all.
It is like saying that it is ok that homosexuals were jailed in the past, because it was illegal after all.
So in this case I think Zelaya deserves our support.
And about those fraud claims... came on... a Catalan newspaper???
It is a stupid law that it is bound to be broken.
You can't legislate that a law can't be "proposed to be reformed". It is against the essence of democracy.
Does this law mean that every person in Honduras who would have voted for a reform is now "unable to hold any public office for a period of 10 years"?
I mean, according to your logic, the military will now be able to remove from power any person who was seen in a pro-reform raid.
Not really, if you use a firefox/ie/chrome plugin you just have to update the plugin frequently.
You don't have to have everybody on your facebook account. I know there is people I found on facebook but I never asked to join me.
And maybe you call it fake because you think of it as a friendship. It is not a friendship, it is a relationship, period. Of course I have friends, and I keep in touch with those. But there are also this people who "was cool back then", and now I have them on my facebook account, and I get interesing feedback when I post a fortune cookie. Not a disruptive technology, I know... but it is entertaining.
Anyway, you don't have to do it. Not everything is for everybody. I was just sharing my experience. It is a good tool for my needs and personality. Maybe it is not for yours.
You can keep track of long lost friends.
In my case, I changed city about 6 times, and changed school about 5 times. (no, I wasn't raised in a circus) So there is a lot of people that I knew but lost track of.
I joined Facebook some weeks ago and now I have about 50 "recovered friends", that is, people that used to be my friends but then I lost touch. I chatted with some, said happy birthday to others, etc.
It would have been more difficult finding them without facebook, since finding each friend manually would be a PITA, and also very non-casual. I mean, how do you get in touch with a kindergarden friend? You don't just call him and tell him "hey, I noticed your name was on the phone book and so I called to say hi". Instead, requesting to "become friend" over facebook is something casual.
Once you get in touch you can just write silly things like "I hate this TV host" or "Today I feel sad". Or you can post old photos or whatever. That gives your friends a chance to see what you are up to and maybe start an actual conversation or schedule a real life encounter (want to come to my birthday this saturday?) And since you are broadcasting to everybody you don't put anyone in particular in the position of having to answer.
It is similar to an msn account, only that you can just broadcast whatever you want and wait to see if somebody answers. Just like bloging, but directed to people you kind-of-know.
I think having an open standard to such service would be great, just as it would be great to have an open standard to IM, and just as it is great to have an open standard to email. Maybe Wave will change this in the near future. I think of this as a way of taking my friends with me wherever I go.
The advantage of facebook is that they have a huge database of "name"->"email" entries, so once you sign up you find out hundreds of people you know. In part, their success is due to spamish practices like sending invitations to all your IM or email contacts (at your request).
There are probably other uses, but this is one I can think of.
That made no sense in so many levels...
Haven't you heard? it is called "the moral standard of Mother Nature". Things have a natural order, which is eternal and pure, and humans (specially scientists) try to subvert it all the time. That usually goes very wrong, because crime doesn't pay.
That's a witty (and true) comment. It will probably go unnoticed on slashdot...
Evolution is what put the species in danger in the first place.
We suffer from a Judeochristian upbringing, which means we were fed with guilt and the need to punish things that were tagged as "sin" for reasons that don't apply in modern times.
We tend to see things that cause pleasure as somehow wrong and deserving of punishment. And when something that feels good can actually harm you, many people quickly points fingers and start talking in terms of "due punishment". For example, in this case, yes, it is bad to eat too much because it will cause obesity and all its attached problems. But that's the only reason, there isn't anything inherently wrong with eating too much, but somehow we tend to think on those terms. If you get rid of obesity, why not eating a lot if you feel like it?
Same goes to sex, of course it is bad to go around having sex, but only because you can caught something. But people quickly forgets that and start thinking in terms of punishment, as if caughting an STD was some kind of punishment for something that is inherently (or morally) wrong about casual sex. You'll see the same argument whenever there is an "HIV vaccine" article here on slashdot, some people starts complaining that "they had it coming" and that now they'll go "screwing around".
It is like saying a person "had it coming" getting flu because they didn't wear gloves and surgical masks, and finding a cure for flu is bad because it will mean people will start walking around "unprotected".
In MS Office, exporting options seems always like an afterthought, and the action of exporting tries to scare you away with messages saying that the exported file 'could' be flawed (without explaining how)... plain FUD.
On the other hand, google provides file support for MS Office, Open Office, cvs, pdf, text. And doesn't make any deal about it.
Yes, you are right in the fact that a cost to move from Google Docs to another set of applications would cost. But that is true for all office packs, including 'libre' ones.
I would love to see (maybe it is somewhere already) an Open Office extension that used Google Docs API to access your files. That would be a good option for migration and also a great option to allow you to use your documents on the desktop. Google Docs is still too slow on my computer (for some documents), even using Chrome to run it.
PD: there is at least one extension that allows import/export, same thing for MS Office.