No comparison. Going 70-75mph instead of 65 is no great stretch and doesn't change situation on road much.
How does texting compare to a 10mph bump? I don't see your logic.
The logic is that accidents happen, and many happen while one person happens to be going a little above the speed limit. I agree with your assessment that speeding isn't inherently dangerous, but nevertheless, those statistics would provide more "evidence" than the little to no evidence we have on texting.
My point is that it's ridiculous to selectively apply the same level of punishment to texting as to drunk driving. It's not established as a huge cause of death, it's not established as something that can't be deterred with difference repercussions, it's not established to be a universal distraction. Some people crash when changing the radio station, some don't. If you look up every two characters and pay attention to the road, where's the evidence that it's actually an "inherent risk" to be legislated against across everyone?
I wish there were a Greasemonkey script for Slashdot that would remove from visibility any and all posts containing "XKCD".
That sounds pretty simple for any computer literate to create, but would you really wish MORE Javascript into the Slashdot discussion page?
Even if I did find XKCD to be endlessly interesting, I wouldn't bring it up at every possible opportunity. Now go ahead and flame me because I don't think your trendy (around here, anyway) comic is all that clever.
The "community" isn't one person rushing out to fix every bug or develop an OSS solution to every problem. I don't think you or anyone believes this is so. Knowing that, it's simply idiotic to imply that anyone is bringing xkcd up at every possible opportunity, regardless of how often you might see a reference. Find someone who has cited the comic in more than 25% of his or her most recent posts if you can. Every slashdot article could have many xkcd references without any one person doing it more than once. I don't think I'm flaming you. I'm certainly not offended, and I've never introduced xkcd into a discussion (although I have here expanded on an xkcd tangent).
I'm more feeling compelled to point out that your phrasing is off the mark (sure, you are tired of seeing xkcd references on Slashdot, but none of your extrapolations from there make sense). Flame or not, I only started this response because of how you opened it. A Greasemonkey script to do what you want isn't something you have to resort to wishing for. If you'd spend a wish on it, why not spend the 5-10 minutes required to implement it.
If your post was meant to not actually result in producing a Greasemonkey script OR a nonsensical claim that some users are out there putting xkcd references out at "every possible opportunity", then, of course, my time responding is wasted:
tl;dr "causality doesn't like seeing xkcd discussion tangents."
Expecting the kernel team to abandon their primary market just because desktops are now important too would be a daft thing to expect.
The key was "rare server concerns" versus "something pretty much every PC user expects". Nothing about abandoning their primary market. If servers with over 4,000 CPUs are really driving Linux, then I'll concur that the comic is off base.
Without looking into it in detail, 4,000+ CPU support versus smooth Flash playback seems to illustrate the comic's point well.
The author is waiting on a Linux kernel patch to fix the Flash issues he has with his Intel card.
OK, so do tell. How exactly is a kernel patch going to fix a problem with a proprietary browser plugin?
On my machine, I can watch FLVs, full screen, with a variety of players (Xine, Mplayer, MythTV). It's only Flash player that's broken.
So, considering that the problem is demonstratably with the Flash plugin, how will a kernel patch fix it?
You tell me. I consider the author to be reasonably competent, purely by impression. He's obviously not talking about FLVs, but rather Flash (indicated by wanting to watch John Stewart). As I said, I don't know how the Flash player interacts with hardware, only that he reports other Linux users not having the same issues watching Stewart (i.e. Hulu) that he is having with his particular hardware configuration.
So, considering that the problem is demonstratably with the Flash plugin, how will a kernel patch fix it?
You have failed to demonstrate anything of the sort (by missing key details), a more informative reply would be technical information Flash's use of hardware resources.
Yet Linux, even Ubuntu or pre-loaded SLED on a Lenovo laptop are too much work for me. While I like fiddling around with settings and getting things to work to my liking, I do not want to make a second job of it. When I am off work, I do not want a second job getting my home laptop and PCs to work.
As a note, I don't want my primary job to be fiddling in such a manner. Playing with Linux is a hobby, encouraged by the things I can accomplish that I can't with less configurable operating systems. I have computers that are stable and always ready for use, and I elect to have a computer where I can mess around with the newest technologies in Linux.
Purely as constructive criticism, I think you may have presented a few misconceived concepts beyond the idea that a hobby equates to a second job (as I tell any Windows users who ask about other options, if you don't feel urgency to try something else, be content).
When asking why things do not work and how to get them to work, you rarely get a straight answer from the community. Yes, I know humans are very unreliable when seeking answers, and there are 20 ways, at least, to do everything in Linux, but still...
This may be 100% valid critique, but I have never actually asked anyone for help in that manner. I certainly don't struggle with no guide, but google searches and distro wikis provide answers to age-old questions like 5 button mouse support. This is definitely the route to take over asking people in #linux somewhere, even if it takes a few intelligent searches to find it. If someone has solved a problem like that, it's likely to have become a write up.
If you ask the question at people, you can only hope someone has the same concern you do. I don't consider my 12 button mouse something that other Linux users should share their time with helping me, since it's a 12 button mouse (a little ridiculous, even if I have come to rely on it). Of course, if someone has solved the issue of a 5 or 8 button mouse, the solution will likely be the same for a 12 button mouse. Of course, the MX1000 was a major brand leader during it's day, so a Google search easily turns up an approach for basic configuration that works for an any button mouse.
When a user wants to get a 5 button mouse to work, they do not want to be asked why would they want to do that, or told that 3 buttons should be all you need, or be handed twenty links, each of which has a different half-answer they need to piece together.
[glyph] For example - if you came in here asking "how do I use a jackhammer" we might ask "why do you need to use a jackhammer" [glyph] If the answer to the latter question is "to knock my grandmother's head off to let out the evil spirits that gave her cancer", then maybe the problem is actually unrelated to jackhammers
Asking why is often the most important question when dealing with someone who doesn't know how to seek out information independently. Also, receiving many half-answers is to be expected if you're asking random people in a forum or chat room, rather than looking for the solution directly. Complete solutions are put into write ups in wikis and tutorials. People in chat rooms or forums can only help as much as their knowledge permits.
Yes, I have installed Windows from scratch, both on a laptop I bought with Linux installed, (Lenovo), and desktops I built myself, using copies of Windows bought commercially and installed out of the box.
I suspect you have a lot to learn about installing operating systems. I certainly do. I would say I installed Gentoo Linux "from scratch" because it had no installer and I had to handle everything, from paritioning, to placing core files and creating the proper mounts and "activate system blocks" from a cd-rom's command line (which is the normal way of installing it). Then I compiled everyt
If you prepay, you'll end up paying a lot less. My plan costs me about 35$ bucks a month for voice + text. No weird taxes or hidden fees.
This is true, however the main appeal of the N900 is for people who also want a data plan. American carriers subsidize data heavy phones like the iPhone by limiting what data options there are and generally restricting consumers to an expensive "unlimited" data plan. If an American wants to use the N900 to it's mobile potential, then the data plan required will cost the same as it costs to someone who bought a subsidized phone.
Unlike the summary's take on things, it's more along the lines of $99+$60/mo versus $600+$60/mo.
Nothing kills immersion more than having to look up which button does what. But if you've played one FPS, you can sit down with any other and have an immediate, intuitive understanding of how it works.
In real life, you don't have to think about how to walk, run, drive a car, swim... So if you want immersion, you have to make all that as intuitive as possible -- easily accomplished if every game of the same genre has the same control scheme.
I like to immerse myself in single player games and a FPS is no exception. Immersion there isn't about the controls, it's about the levels, game play, and believe it or not, plot. Not necessarily the story line, but things that happen while playing. A WW2 game loses immersion if there's a difficult area that takes many tries to survive, and the action is the same everytime (scripted events and AI, Call of Duty style). Enemies showing up at the exact same places and having "surprise" moments like a machine gun behind a door killing 2 in my squad break the immersion after repeating it enough times.
Immersion is lost if my character is established as being part of a squad or team, but is constantly sent off alone as an obvious device to not worry about complicated squad dynamics. FPS games aren't known for their dedication to story, but something as simple as "overcome these defenses and capture this thing" is reasonable enough. It's the actual way things play out that I place emphasis on. If I'm told to do a stealthy recon, I expect to be able to actually see through light brush, rather then being blinded by the wall of textures that makes up the bush I'm lying in. If the point of that level is to fight and kill everyone there, then please ask me to assault the location, or at least give some reason for the change in tactics other than me giving up because I can't see anything unless I come out into the open.
To sum it up, how events play out in the game and how I am able to interact with my environment are as important for immersion as intuitive controls. Run out and shoot can be fun and is definitely better the more intuitive controls are, but that can break immersion if that's not something that makes sense outside of it being an FPS. This is a difficult challenge in games. If you are a soldier, and can take too much damage, then you can just charge hard targets and survive. If you can take a realistic amount of damage (hardly any to none), then the game has to be designed so that you can fight battles out without having to repeat each conflict over and over until you survive.
In Fallout 3, not a 100% true FPS of course, there were some successes in that regard. The opening / training sequence was interesting, but not all that immersive as it relied heavily on preset dialog options (forcing you into preconceived responses). Once outside of the Vault, however, I found myself very much immersed. The whole area was open, and I could explore at my (extreme) peril. I had no money for beds or medicine, so I had to find work that led me into the wasteland and scavenge everything I could carry as I went along. Combat was avoided at all costs, because if even an animal attacked me, that was ammo spent and health lost with no guarantee that I'd be able to replenish either, especially since the work I was hoping to get done when I had reached my destination might require all the health and ammo I had when setting out. I was always on edge, as the threat wasn't pre-scripted, and could seemingly come at any time while outside of a safe area, in many different forms (some much more dangerous than others).
The good/evil alignment added to my immersion, since I had decided my character would try to stay good in a very bad world. This sense lasted for all the early levels, and I wasn't sure how I would move beyond pure survival. Heavily weighing an opportunity I found in an old subway station, I murdered two people who were no threat to me, and took their stores of ammo, medical supplies and junk that could be sold. This helped put m
That doesn't mean Crysis would be better without the first-person view. It's the realism that makes that kind of game.
Crysis may look pretty, but I found realism as a major failing for immersion. I'm in the jungle, and it hasn't worked out well (I only bought the game recently and haven't played through too much of it). It doesn't seem like brush and current rendering technologies work well. You can make the plant life look pretty, but I need to see through it realistically. It been my experience that brush provides impenetrable cover for the enemy, and a giant blind for me. If I'm creeping through the jungle I need a better implementation of peeking through leaves and branches than a virtual "wall" of textures obstructing my view.
Why does this matter, really? Linux is a server OS, why are they spending any time on useless trivia? Compare the number of working linux boxes used for servers versus desktops, and ask the same question again.
I get the same question each time I ask the question: it matters because I don't manage servers anymore, and the news about improvements to the "Linux Desktop" is much more relevant to me. Not only because I like to play around with Linux and any related innovations, but also because I believe that 1) Windows won't always be as easy to acquire without cost as it has been for as long as I can remember, 2) I (or a friend/family member) won't always have money to spend on a Mac, and 3) with those conditions on the table, there will be many situations where suddenly a Linux desktop system is the best option. That is, having to spend $100 on an OS places value on a Linux desktop regardless of how much they are outnumbered by Linux servers, especially when money is tight.
Of course, I'm intentionally thinking ahead in reaction to your question. My initial response is the most accurate. Improvements on the Linux desktop are just vastly more relevant and interesting to me than server issues. That might shift if I move back into a position where I'm managing servers, but probably not very much (I think there's more of a status quo).
"A lot" is two words. You wouldn't say "alittle", would you?
I applaud the effort to stamp out the incorrect use of "alot" in place of "a lot", but I'll add my unsolicited advice that it would read better as: "A lot is two words. You wouldn't say "agoup", would you?. Agroup, aton, abunch all match it up with "lot" as a noun, rather than just the modern adopted usage as a synonym to "many".
I disagree. Do you have any reason why you want to get rid of X?
As you say, X is getting better. It would take an incredibly strong argument to make the point that X should be rewritten from scratch, since, as you point out, it has so many applications. There are shortcomings that I associate with X, but they tend get lost in the overall effort to configure a new system install to work just how I want with my specific hardware. These fall into the general Linux-system shortcomings bucket where extra work is required for final touches, and as the various programs at fault get better, they become fewer.
Of course, OSX provides an X11 environment, and I've never known anyone to use it for applications. It's been my experience that Linux users who move into the OSX world either use an OSX alternative application, an OSX port of the original application, or just do without on that computer. That has always told me something about the Linux GUI world and the OSX GUI world. Perhaps only that OSX developers can put a lot of effort into really polishing their apps, knowing that Apple users will pay for a polished program (Transmit, and FTP program by Panic, is an example off the top of my head; it seems to sell quite well, without really having any feature advantage over free alternatives). Obviously a market with good chance for profit will lead to more people trying to improve and shine-up simple programs such as FTP clients with the hopes that money will be made. The Linux user community is much more likely to choose a free application over a polished and well-integrated application. Codeweavers is the only company that springs to mind that sells improved versions of existing, free products.
Whether or not there's any merit to that line of thought, I (not having done any development for X) wonder what sort of SDKs are out there and how they compare to developing for OSX and Windows. Are there development shortcomings when it comes to X?
X works really good for what it's designed for and I'd hate to have to live without it. That said, what I also would like is a custom version for gaming which turns down or off features not needed for gaming. Wouldn't it be nice if users could build a custom X as easy as custom kernels?
I agree that X works well for it's designed purpose, and that said I agree that we have further need as we move beyond what it was designed to do (and into the issues we run into with a modern desktop, such as gaming).
I find I struggle a bit with X on each new install (I like to switch around and use different Linux distros as the mood to tinker comes and goes). After working in an OSX-based development shop with Logitech MX1000s at each desk, I became spoiled on the 12 buttons (10 if you don't count the wheel's scroll up and scroll down), especially combined with Expose. The same features are available in an X desktop environment using Compiz Fusion, and as is usually the case, the Linux equivalent of Expose can be configured to do a whole lot more.
The first issue with X is getting my mouse configured. I can get all mouse buttons to work, but I usually find myself searching and coming to the xbindkeys method after making minor changes to X's config file. I never remember just what I did to get it working the last time, and have to play around for a while to first figure out what the buttons are, and have to resort to assigning key bindings to them (which I also do for some of them in OSX, as something like ctrl-alt-right and ctrl-alt-left get the job done for switching desktops since I already have that shortcut in place).
There are desktop-environment specific issues (Compiz refusing to take a click to toggle all windows, for example, instead required the button be held down), but the main annoyance was the bindings not being captured by video games (WoW was the game at the time). WoW ran great on my Linux system, but to use my mouse properly (which was important for in-game macros), I had to exit X, swap the.xinitrc files, and start up my "WoW-configured" X, which launched the game and allowed me to use my mouse bindings without anything else competing for them. I didn't get around to including ventrillo into that setup.
Now these are two different things:
1) It's been a major pain to set up my fancy-pants mouse to be fully recognised in X.
2) Once set up, there are conflicts between the non-X desktop environments that use the bindings and any applications launched.
The first could be made easier, but as the mouse is supported by evidence of me getting it working, repeating the process each time is no one's fault but my own. If it's a serious enough complaint I should even write a tool to do the configuration. I suspect that it would be useful to some, but not all, due to the main issue seen in #2.
There seems to be structural functionality lacking in X that applications can use to share resources, such as input devices. I don't expect X to have been designed expecting a KDE / Compiz Fusion environment to compete with WoW running from Wine, and the last thing I'd like to see is X development push entirely in that direction, since obviously we still need it's server/network features without bloating it with features that won't be used in most cases where those are needed. Still, I'd like the option for universal recognition of mouse buttons beyond the 3+scroll model in all applications that use X, with rules about which applications one wants to take the input. Perhaps that's a window manager issue, but with so many window managers out there, it seems like there should be a solid framework written into X that provides a standard way for the different desktop environments to handle such things.
I can honestly say that the system does feel a lot snappier, more responsive, and just overall a much more pleasant user experience. Everything's just a lot smoother. The kernel team is doing a pretty awesome job of speeding things up. Kudos.
That's good to hear; I've been waiting for such news concerning the kernel to help inspire me to fire up my desktop again and finish the last install I started (I left it at a stock kernel and mouse buttons not configured for my MX1000). It's been all too easy to use my laptop for everything, but new kernel features that noticeably improve the user experience have always been exciting. I remember the difference preemptive multitasking made to the desktop experience when it was introduced. It made a huge difference on our systems, especially with the security course we were taking at the time (which had all our CPU time completely occupied for about a week).
The comic didn't imply the kernel. Purists that wash their hands while saying "Linux is just a kernel, not my fault if it cannot (run x, recognize y or perform z)" are the target of this comic which tries to explain why linux (as a whole OS-and-software alternative) is not ready for the desktop.
Indeed, the xkcd in question (a link to the page, not the image) doesn't hang on technical accuracy. It's absolutely a commentary on issues with the "Linux Desktop", with developers putting a relatively rare server concern such as support for thousands of CPUs ahead of something that pretty much every PC user expects to have (the ability to watch Hulu smoothly).
To nit-pick, however, the comic does seem to imply the kernel. In the alt-text you find:
"I hear many of you finally have smooth Flash support, but me and my Intel card are still waiting on a kernel patch somewhere in the pipeline before we can watch Jon Stewart smoothly."
The author is waiting on a Linux kernel patch to fix the Flash issues he has with his Intel card.
That's one of the more annoying XKCDs as far as I'm concerned. It seems to imply that the full-screen Flash video woes are somehow the kernel's fault. I used to like XKCD, but it seems to be getting dumber and dumber each day.
When Markansoft says the above, it's clear that he prizes technical accuracy in the comic enough to forgo appreciation of the general point of humour. However, is the comic's implication really wrong? I don't know much about how Flash works with hardware, or if it requires any specific support for a chipset. The author seems pretty sure he needs a patch for his hardware set up before he can get the same quality of Flash performance already enjoyed by other Linux users. That certainly doesn't remove Adobe and their cross-platform unfriendliness from the situation, but Linux distros are made from work arounds, and the comic's target is the priorities of developers, not Adobe's open source policies.
Good! Driving while drunk and driving while texting are both negligent choices. If that choice leads to someone's death, they certainly should be treated equally. If anything driving while texting is worse since your decision making abilities are not hindered by an altered state of mind.
So is changing the radio station. Why not impose 15+ year prison sentences for anyone at fault in any accident with a fatality, regardless of cause? Each accident could then be treated as a homicide, and forensics would choose which party is the murderer.
Wow; I'm amazed it actually got publicity. In Illinois a couple years ago a driver veered onto the shoulder while downloading a ringtone and hit and killed a cyclist. Almost nobody cared. Well, maybe if it had been a pedestrian or motorist killed people would have paid attention; people in America seem to think that cyclists are fair game.
Distracted driving like this is responsible for a lot of severe and fatal "accidents". As someone else said- it is willful misconduct that should be punished.
Driving a car is dangerous, period. If you are driving a car- that should be ALL you are doing is driving. If you aren't focused on what you are doing- you are putting your life, and those of everyone around you, in danger. Why is that so hard for some people to understand?
I have a 32-mile long commute to work every day, and EVERY DAY I see people swerving out of their lane and driving erratically while gabbing or texting on a cell phone. I almost get hit at least once a week by one of these winners.
I'll go out on a limb and suggest you've exceeded posted speed limits before, likely many times. That puts you in the same "willful act" of incurring "inherent risk" as texting or drunk driving, doesn't it?
Does anyone know if traffic accident rates have gone up in recent years?
Irrelevant. Accident rates in general depend on too many other things, including safety features (new and old) in cars on the road, how many cars are on the road, and how the roads are designed.
It's not rocket science to deduce that taking your eyes and mind off the road make you a more dangerous driver. If it's not contributing significantly to the accident rate, that just means that a lot of people, believe it or not, aren't stupid enough to do it.
Deduction is not good grounds for imposes harsh penalties. That's just my opinion, of course. However, if texting while driving deserves 15 years in jail, speeding should warrant the same (or worse).
So what now? I am sitting at a red stoplight, which I know takes at least a minute to switch. I can't take 10 seconds to text someone that I'll be late? It's perfectly safe and the worst thing is that I'll get honked at if the light turns green before I pay attention. I have made a thoughtful, careful choice. Yet according to the law, I am as bad as a drunk driver.
Actually, according to the law, if you cause a fatal accident while texting you're as bad as a drunk driver.
If you're sitting at a red light, it would be difficult to cause a fatal accident; the only possibility I see is if you are hit by someone not expecting a car stopped at a green light, and that's arguably the fault of both drivers.
So don't text while moving, and you should be fine. Amazing concept I know, but seems to be the intent of the law.
It's my understanding that some states allow texting whenever the vehicle is stationary, including at a red light. I haven't bothered to check.
This appears to be the correct legislative response, for once.
I actually disagree on the legislative point. Driving while texting is obviously dangerous, but the statement 'If you choose to drink and drive or if you choose to text and drive, you're assuming the same risk' is still complete speculation. Laws against drunk driving and the punishments involved came about over decades of people driving drunk and society dealing with the resulting accidents. Harsh punishments are in place for drunk driving because it's established to be a major cause of injury and death that still remains hard to eliminate.
Lawmakers are, IMHO, acting irresponsibly if they impose the same punishments based merely on an assumption that because texting while driving it's dangerous, it's AS dangerous. Have they compared the deaths caused by drunk drivers against the deaths caused by people texting? Have they compared the deaths caused by people in accidents who were driving above the speed limit against people texting? Would it seem a correct response to impose sentences of up to 15 years for anyone caught speeding? Speeding is also "willful act" and can just as easily be considered "inherently reckless".
I certainly don't want people texting while driving, but I think the punishment must fit the crime, and that match must be based on more than assumption.
But a lot of open source projects seem to treat the press as an annoyance...
And the press-person says:
'...it generally does mean, "Drop everything and answer us now." If the journalist doesn't give you a deadline ("I need to know by 2pm"), it's okay to ask how long you can take to reach the right developer in Poland, but err on the side of "emergency response." It's unreasonable, I know, but so are our deadlines.'
Wow, I can't imagine why volunteer developers consider the press an annoyance. Maybe the press should cut back on the 30-second deadline and take some time to actually get facts, instead of getting something out the door now, even if it isn't right. I think that journalists with this attitude are probably in the wrong business -- you should be doing research and finding the story, not demanding that a non-storyteller drops what they're doing to give you the story on a silver platter. Software only appears to move quickly...in reality, businesses are slow to adopt new software these days. Taking the time to do thorough research on an open source project will not kill the press, just like waiting a few weeks for a story on a software project will not kill the software project.
Not to mention the reporter is likely to be totally unknown in terms of expertise. I imagine many programmers can identify with the annoyance of being asked to explain an intrinsically technical project to a non-technical manager at work (resulting in a manager who can recite some form of car analogy but is no closer to being able to make informed decisions about the project). If I'm contributing code to an open source project as a hobby, the last thing I might want to do is repeat that scenario with a reporter who, by nature of the technical area, should be able to receive the technical explanation (in the same way sports writers understand the sports they cover).
Me, I would prefer to read the right story than the first story. I wish that the press' job to make sure that the right story is the first story...but that shall continue to be my wish.
Well put. I'd rather not have an article written than have one written that's full of errors. I certainly see it as the reporter's job to make sure they get the story right, not the programmer's job to walk the reporter through everything.
Unless there is a company behind the project (a monetary incentive), few projects are going to have a drop-whatever-you're-doing attitude favoring reporters (and most of those companies have designated PR people). If you want something that even approximates a timely response, you'll need to give your what/why/for-whom/deadline tuple right upfront. Consider asking your IT people what they know (you may be surprised, or horrified), but don't take their word for it. Ask them to point you to a good resource.
In addition to your what/why/for-whome/deadline information, include your list of questions in the email. If you get a response, you have your interview. Don't expect programmers and engineers to be technical writers; it's your job to take any highly technical content and make it layman friendly.
Does it make sense for your open source project to get some good press coverage? If no, then my press inquiries are no burden to you. If yes, then is it reasonable to complain about the way in which the opportunities to gain press coverage present themselves?
This is faulty logic, because the vast majority of volunteer, not-for-profit open source projects can easily not fit. Yes it makes sense for the project to get some good press coverage. Yes, press inquiries can easily be a burden to those contributing their time. Good press making sense for a project doesn't mean it's required for it, important for it, or that your potential article is the only way to go about getting it. Good projects will usually end up spreading by their own merit, anyway.
An article about a project might give it a boost, one indeed wanted by those that are working on the project. If the offer to write such an article comes clueless to the situation (by using the same methods described for dealing with a corporation like Microsoft, etc), then there easily can be the case where good press makes sense AND your press inquiries are a burden. That is precisely a reasonable time to complain about the way the opportunity presented itself.
If you want me to have fuller information, please answer my phone call or e-mail.
E-mail is by far a better option, I think.
Or, as suggested elsewhere, if you don't have time then designate somebody as your press representative and tell him/her to return my phone call when it comes... and also tell him/her to register with Peter Shankman's Help A Reporter Out [helpareporter.com] initiative.
This isn't a question of helping a company or organization deal be better with the press, it's about making open source projects press-friendly. It's a valid topic because the same rules (and the same advice such as this) don't necessarily apply. Consider the project contributors may all be volunteers contributing coding time as a hobby. If the project is still worth writing something about, that isn't changed by the situation where none of the programmers have decided the limited time they contribute will also include PR tasks.
Or, as suggested in Ms. Schindler's IT World article, create a/press page or section on your Web site like the big companies do.
If functionality comes before user documentation, user documentation will come before press releases. If it's all volunteer time, people will prioritize, and those people will be coders.
There you should have information about what your project is about, why you think it matters, its current status, who to contact for more information, screen shots (please remember that print media require high-resolution versions of screen shots or other images for the printing press), press releases and other mentions in the media.
If you (the reporter) has decided the open source project is news worthy, you should have a basic idea on what it is about and why it matters already. Include questions don't have the answer to in your initial email. Make your own screenshots while you're playing around with the software. To put it bluntly, quoting from a press page and including screenshots from the site hardly seems like the methods of a competent tech reporter.
(That's not the same as an FAQ and I won't quote an FAQ. I want to hear from the people behind the project what they're doing and why they're doing it. People make news stories interesting. There's a human angle to everything.)
FAQs are FAQs. As you say, a reporter should be looking for more. Send your own questions in.
Use plain language, not jargon.
Technical projects require technical descriptions. Good technical reporters won't be phased, since anything new to them should be researched anyway. Don't try to do a report on the project for the masses if you don't understand the basics.
If you translate that page into a foreign language, have someone fluent in the language (preferably it's his/her native language) double-check your work. If it's a bad translation, it reflects badly on you. I've lost count of how many foreign businesses have an English press kit that reads as though a fourth-grader wrote it up and I have no doubt that many businesses from English-speaking countries have non-English press material that is equally poorly translated.
Again, this isn't about businesses. It's about open source projects specifically because they can be fundamentally different than businesses. As a projects is successful purely by merit, translations will come as people who use the software volunteer them (and they may well be translations of the application ages before they are translations of text on the site).
From the first line in the summary: "Corporations know that part of launching a successful project is projecting the right image to the media. But a lot of open source projects seem to treat the press as an annoyance, if they think about it at all."
If your answer is "open source projects should just do what press-friendly corporations do", you're failing to address the differences between the two. It seems a reporter can much more easily cater better to open source projects than the other way around.
Talk to your local newspaper about a mention in their business/technology section. You may get lucky and have a non-incredible project get written about by nature of it being local; i.e. an overall unexciting twitter client covered through the angle of "twitter" + "local".
The point of this isn't to have subscribers exposed to your project, but gaining another source for greater exposure. I frequently see stories on Slashdot that link to articles on my local paper's online version that I had just read in the hard copy paper that same morning.
"To use a generic kernel you'll need to build an initrd to load your filesystem module and possibly your drive controller or other drivers needed at boot time"
Sorry guys , this is 2009. If the only options to get my devices running is some huge BLOB of a kernel or having to manually hack together an initrd I think I'll stick with other distributions. Installing a distribution is enough work as it is these days without having to worry about fundamentals such as getting the kernel to boot in the first place. This might have been fine in the days when all you wanted out of a setup was a working command prompt and maybe fvwm but these days its just too much work.
(And yes , I used to run slackware up to 11.0)
It is indeed 2009, and installing a distribution is the least work it's ever been. I hardly see how it's become MORE work. I may have become more lazy, however. Even if I muster the motivation to compile a new kernel, I'd hardly call it difficult, and certainly not more difficult than it used to be. In fact, compiling a kernel is probably the strongest Linux deja-vu experience left for me.
The only parts of setting up a Linux desktop that have increased the amount of work are the things I could only dream of 10 years ago, like properly binding everything on my 12 button mouse to fancy new window manager features, and making sure they also work with my fancy 3D video games running under Wine.
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No comparison. Going 70-75mph instead of 65 is no great stretch and doesn't change situation on road much.
How does texting compare to a 10mph bump? I don't see your logic.
The logic is that accidents happen, and many happen while one person happens to be going a little above the speed limit. I agree with your assessment that speeding isn't inherently dangerous, but nevertheless, those statistics would provide more "evidence" than the little to no evidence we have on texting.
My point is that it's ridiculous to selectively apply the same level of punishment to texting as to drunk driving. It's not established as a huge cause of death, it's not established as something that can't be deterred with difference repercussions, it's not established to be a universal distraction. Some people crash when changing the radio station, some don't. If you look up every two characters and pay attention to the road, where's the evidence that it's actually an "inherent risk" to be legislated against across everyone?
What's a bigger phrase than WHOOOOOSH?
I wish there were a Greasemonkey script for Slashdot that would remove from visibility any and all posts containing "XKCD".
That sounds pretty simple for any computer literate to create, but would you really wish MORE Javascript into the Slashdot discussion page?
Even if I did find XKCD to be endlessly interesting, I wouldn't bring it up at every possible opportunity. Now go ahead and flame me because I don't think your trendy (around here, anyway) comic is all that clever.
The "community" isn't one person rushing out to fix every bug or develop an OSS solution to every problem. I don't think you or anyone believes this is so. Knowing that, it's simply idiotic to imply that anyone is bringing xkcd up at every possible opportunity, regardless of how often you might see a reference. Find someone who has cited the comic in more than 25% of his or her most recent posts if you can. Every slashdot article could have many xkcd references without any one person doing it more than once. I don't think I'm flaming you. I'm certainly not offended, and I've never introduced xkcd into a discussion (although I have here expanded on an xkcd tangent).
I'm more feeling compelled to point out that your phrasing is off the mark (sure, you are tired of seeing xkcd references on Slashdot, but none of your extrapolations from there make sense). Flame or not, I only started this response because of how you opened it. A Greasemonkey script to do what you want isn't something you have to resort to wishing for. If you'd spend a wish on it, why not spend the 5-10 minutes required to implement it.
If your post was meant to not actually result in producing a Greasemonkey script OR a nonsensical claim that some users are out there putting xkcd references out at "every possible opportunity", then, of course, my time responding is wasted:
tl;dr "causality doesn't like seeing xkcd discussion tangents."
Expecting the kernel team to abandon their primary market just because desktops are now important too would be a daft thing to expect.
The key was "rare server concerns" versus "something pretty much every PC user expects". Nothing about abandoning their primary market. If servers with over 4,000 CPUs are really driving Linux, then I'll concur that the comic is off base.
Without looking into it in detail, 4,000+ CPU support versus smooth Flash playback seems to illustrate the comic's point well.
The author is waiting on a Linux kernel patch to fix the Flash issues he has with his Intel card.
OK, so do tell. How exactly is a kernel patch going to fix a problem with a proprietary browser plugin?
On my machine, I can watch FLVs, full screen, with a variety of players (Xine, Mplayer, MythTV). It's only Flash player that's broken.
So, considering that the problem is demonstratably with the Flash plugin, how will a kernel patch fix it?
You tell me. I consider the author to be reasonably competent, purely by impression. He's obviously not talking about FLVs, but rather Flash (indicated by wanting to watch John Stewart). As I said, I don't know how the Flash player interacts with hardware, only that he reports other Linux users not having the same issues watching Stewart (i.e. Hulu) that he is having with his particular hardware configuration.
So, considering that the problem is demonstratably with the Flash plugin, how will a kernel patch fix it?
You have failed to demonstrate anything of the sort (by missing key details), a more informative reply would be technical information Flash's use of hardware resources.
Yet Linux, even Ubuntu or pre-loaded SLED on a Lenovo laptop are too much work for me. While I like fiddling around with settings and getting things to work to my liking, I do not want to make a second job of it. When I am off work, I do not want a second job getting my home laptop and PCs to work.
As a note, I don't want my primary job to be fiddling in such a manner. Playing with Linux is a hobby, encouraged by the things I can accomplish that I can't with less configurable operating systems. I have computers that are stable and always ready for use, and I elect to have a computer where I can mess around with the newest technologies in Linux.
Purely as constructive criticism, I think you may have presented a few misconceived concepts beyond the idea that a hobby equates to a second job (as I tell any Windows users who ask about other options, if you don't feel urgency to try something else, be content).
When asking why things do not work and how to get them to work, you rarely get a straight answer from the community. Yes, I know humans are very unreliable when seeking answers, and there are 20 ways, at least, to do everything in Linux, but still...
This may be 100% valid critique, but I have never actually asked anyone for help in that manner. I certainly don't struggle with no guide, but google searches and distro wikis provide answers to age-old questions like 5 button mouse support. This is definitely the route to take over asking people in #linux somewhere, even if it takes a few intelligent searches to find it. If someone has solved a problem like that, it's likely to have become a write up.
If you ask the question at people, you can only hope someone has the same concern you do. I don't consider my 12 button mouse something that other Linux users should share their time with helping me, since it's a 12 button mouse (a little ridiculous, even if I have come to rely on it). Of course, if someone has solved the issue of a 5 or 8 button mouse, the solution will likely be the same for a 12 button mouse. Of course, the MX1000 was a major brand leader during it's day, so a Google search easily turns up an approach for basic configuration that works for an any button mouse.
When a user wants to get a 5 button mouse to work, they do not want to be asked why would they want to do that, or told that 3 buttons should be all you need, or be handed twenty links, each of which has a different half-answer they need to piece together.
There's a quote on bash.org:
[glyph] For example - if you came in here asking "how do I use a jackhammer" we might ask "why do you need to use a jackhammer"
[glyph] If the answer to the latter question is "to knock my grandmother's head off to let out the evil spirits that gave her cancer", then maybe the problem is actually unrelated to jackhammers
Asking why is often the most important question when dealing with someone who doesn't know how to seek out information independently. Also, receiving many half-answers is to be expected if you're asking random people in a forum or chat room, rather than looking for the solution directly. Complete solutions are put into write ups in wikis and tutorials. People in chat rooms or forums can only help as much as their knowledge permits.
Yes, I have installed Windows from scratch, both on a laptop I bought with Linux installed, (Lenovo), and desktops I built myself, using copies of Windows bought commercially and installed out of the box.
I suspect you have a lot to learn about installing operating systems. I certainly do. I would say I installed Gentoo Linux "from scratch" because it had no installer and I had to handle everything, from paritioning, to placing core files and creating the proper mounts and "activate system blocks" from a cd-rom's command line (which is the normal way of installing it). Then I compiled everyt
If you prepay, you'll end up paying a lot less. My plan costs me about 35$ bucks a month for voice + text. No weird taxes or hidden fees.
This is true, however the main appeal of the N900 is for people who also want a data plan. American carriers subsidize data heavy phones like the iPhone by limiting what data options there are and generally restricting consumers to an expensive "unlimited" data plan. If an American wants to use the N900 to it's mobile potential, then the data plan required will cost the same as it costs to someone who bought a subsidized phone.
Unlike the summary's take on things, it's more along the lines of $99+$60/mo versus $600+$60/mo.
Nothing kills immersion more than having to look up which button does what. But if you've played one FPS, you can sit down with any other and have an immediate, intuitive understanding of how it works.
In real life, you don't have to think about how to walk, run, drive a car, swim... So if you want immersion, you have to make all that as intuitive as possible -- easily accomplished if every game of the same genre has the same control scheme.
I like to immerse myself in single player games and a FPS is no exception. Immersion there isn't about the controls, it's about the levels, game play, and believe it or not, plot. Not necessarily the story line, but things that happen while playing. A WW2 game loses immersion if there's a difficult area that takes many tries to survive, and the action is the same everytime (scripted events and AI, Call of Duty style). Enemies showing up at the exact same places and having "surprise" moments like a machine gun behind a door killing 2 in my squad break the immersion after repeating it enough times.
Immersion is lost if my character is established as being part of a squad or team, but is constantly sent off alone as an obvious device to not worry about complicated squad dynamics. FPS games aren't known for their dedication to story, but something as simple as "overcome these defenses and capture this thing" is reasonable enough. It's the actual way things play out that I place emphasis on. If I'm told to do a stealthy recon, I expect to be able to actually see through light brush, rather then being blinded by the wall of textures that makes up the bush I'm lying in. If the point of that level is to fight and kill everyone there, then please ask me to assault the location, or at least give some reason for the change in tactics other than me giving up because I can't see anything unless I come out into the open.
To sum it up, how events play out in the game and how I am able to interact with my environment are as important for immersion as intuitive controls. Run out and shoot can be fun and is definitely better the more intuitive controls are, but that can break immersion if that's not something that makes sense outside of it being an FPS. This is a difficult challenge in games. If you are a soldier, and can take too much damage, then you can just charge hard targets and survive. If you can take a realistic amount of damage (hardly any to none), then the game has to be designed so that you can fight battles out without having to repeat each conflict over and over until you survive.
In Fallout 3, not a 100% true FPS of course, there were some successes in that regard. The opening / training sequence was interesting, but not all that immersive as it relied heavily on preset dialog options (forcing you into preconceived responses). Once outside of the Vault, however, I found myself very much immersed. The whole area was open, and I could explore at my (extreme) peril. I had no money for beds or medicine, so I had to find work that led me into the wasteland and scavenge everything I could carry as I went along. Combat was avoided at all costs, because if even an animal attacked me, that was ammo spent and health lost with no guarantee that I'd be able to replenish either, especially since the work I was hoping to get done when I had reached my destination might require all the health and ammo I had when setting out. I was always on edge, as the threat wasn't pre-scripted, and could seemingly come at any time while outside of a safe area, in many different forms (some much more dangerous than others).
The good/evil alignment added to my immersion, since I had decided my character would try to stay good in a very bad world. This sense lasted for all the early levels, and I wasn't sure how I would move beyond pure survival. Heavily weighing an opportunity I found in an old subway station, I murdered two people who were no threat to me, and took their stores of ammo, medical supplies and junk that could be sold. This helped put m
That doesn't mean Crysis would be better without the first-person view. It's the realism that makes that kind of game.
Crysis may look pretty, but I found realism as a major failing for immersion. I'm in the jungle, and it hasn't worked out well (I only bought the game recently and haven't played through too much of it). It doesn't seem like brush and current rendering technologies work well. You can make the plant life look pretty, but I need to see through it realistically. It been my experience that brush provides impenetrable cover for the enemy, and a giant blind for me. If I'm creeping through the jungle I need a better implementation of peeking through leaves and branches than a virtual "wall" of textures obstructing my view.
Why does this matter, really? Linux is a server OS, why are they spending any time on useless trivia? Compare the number of working linux boxes used for servers versus desktops, and ask the same question again.
I get the same question each time I ask the question: it matters because I don't manage servers anymore, and the news about improvements to the "Linux Desktop" is much more relevant to me. Not only because I like to play around with Linux and any related innovations, but also because I believe that 1) Windows won't always be as easy to acquire without cost as it has been for as long as I can remember, 2) I (or a friend/family member) won't always have money to spend on a Mac, and 3) with those conditions on the table, there will be many situations where suddenly a Linux desktop system is the best option. That is, having to spend $100 on an OS places value on a Linux desktop regardless of how much they are outnumbered by Linux servers, especially when money is tight.
Of course, I'm intentionally thinking ahead in reaction to your question. My initial response is the most accurate. Improvements on the Linux desktop are just vastly more relevant and interesting to me than server issues. That might shift if I move back into a position where I'm managing servers, but probably not very much (I think there's more of a status quo).
"A lot" is two words. You wouldn't say "alittle", would you?
I applaud the effort to stamp out the incorrect use of "alot" in place of "a lot", but I'll add my unsolicited advice that it would read better as: "A lot is two words. You wouldn't say "agoup", would you?. Agroup, aton, abunch all match it up with "lot" as a noun, rather than just the modern adopted usage as a synonym to "many".
I disagree. Do you have any reason why you want to get rid of X?
As you say, X is getting better. It would take an incredibly strong argument to make the point that X should be rewritten from scratch, since, as you point out, it has so many applications. There are shortcomings that I associate with X, but they tend get lost in the overall effort to configure a new system install to work just how I want with my specific hardware. These fall into the general Linux-system shortcomings bucket where extra work is required for final touches, and as the various programs at fault get better, they become fewer.
Of course, OSX provides an X11 environment, and I've never known anyone to use it for applications. It's been my experience that Linux users who move into the OSX world either use an OSX alternative application, an OSX port of the original application, or just do without on that computer. That has always told me something about the Linux GUI world and the OSX GUI world. Perhaps only that OSX developers can put a lot of effort into really polishing their apps, knowing that Apple users will pay for a polished program (Transmit, and FTP program by Panic, is an example off the top of my head; it seems to sell quite well, without really having any feature advantage over free alternatives). Obviously a market with good chance for profit will lead to more people trying to improve and shine-up simple programs such as FTP clients with the hopes that money will be made. The Linux user community is much more likely to choose a free application over a polished and well-integrated application. Codeweavers is the only company that springs to mind that sells improved versions of existing, free products.
Whether or not there's any merit to that line of thought, I (not having done any development for X) wonder what sort of SDKs are out there and how they compare to developing for OSX and Windows. Are there development shortcomings when it comes to X?
X works really good for what it's designed for and I'd hate to have to live without it. That said, what I also would like is a custom version for gaming which turns down or off features not needed for gaming. Wouldn't it be nice if users could build a custom X as easy as custom kernels?
I agree that X works well for it's designed purpose, and that said I agree that we have further need as we move beyond what it was designed to do (and into the issues we run into with a modern desktop, such as gaming).
I find I struggle a bit with X on each new install (I like to switch around and use different Linux distros as the mood to tinker comes and goes). After working in an OSX-based development shop with Logitech MX1000s at each desk, I became spoiled on the 12 buttons (10 if you don't count the wheel's scroll up and scroll down), especially combined with Expose. The same features are available in an X desktop environment using Compiz Fusion, and as is usually the case, the Linux equivalent of Expose can be configured to do a whole lot more.
The first issue with X is getting my mouse configured. I can get all mouse buttons to work, but I usually find myself searching and coming to the xbindkeys method after making minor changes to X's config file. I never remember just what I did to get it working the last time, and have to play around for a while to first figure out what the buttons are, and have to resort to assigning key bindings to them (which I also do for some of them in OSX, as something like ctrl-alt-right and ctrl-alt-left get the job done for switching desktops since I already have that shortcut in place).
There are desktop-environment specific issues (Compiz refusing to take a click to toggle all windows, for example, instead required the button be held down), but the main annoyance was the bindings not being captured by video games (WoW was the game at the time). WoW ran great on my Linux system, but to use my mouse properly (which was important for in-game macros), I had to exit X, swap the .xinitrc files, and start up my "WoW-configured" X, which launched the game and allowed me to use my mouse bindings without anything else competing for them. I didn't get around to including ventrillo into that setup.
Now these are two different things:
1) It's been a major pain to set up my fancy-pants mouse to be fully recognised in X.
2) Once set up, there are conflicts between the non-X desktop environments that use the bindings and any applications launched.
The first could be made easier, but as the mouse is supported by evidence of me getting it working, repeating the process each time is no one's fault but my own. If it's a serious enough complaint I should even write a tool to do the configuration. I suspect that it would be useful to some, but not all, due to the main issue seen in #2.
There seems to be structural functionality lacking in X that applications can use to share resources, such as input devices. I don't expect X to have been designed expecting a KDE / Compiz Fusion environment to compete with WoW running from Wine, and the last thing I'd like to see is X development push entirely in that direction, since obviously we still need it's server/network features without bloating it with features that won't be used in most cases where those are needed. Still, I'd like the option for universal recognition of mouse buttons beyond the 3+scroll model in all applications that use X, with rules about which applications one wants to take the input. Perhaps that's a window manager issue, but with so many window managers out there, it seems like there should be a solid framework written into X that provides a standard way for the different desktop environments to handle such things.
I can honestly say that the system does feel a lot snappier, more responsive, and just overall a much more pleasant user experience. Everything's just a lot smoother. The kernel team is doing a pretty awesome job of speeding things up. Kudos.
That's good to hear; I've been waiting for such news concerning the kernel to help inspire me to fire up my desktop again and finish the last install I started (I left it at a stock kernel and mouse buttons not configured for my MX1000). It's been all too easy to use my laptop for everything, but new kernel features that noticeably improve the user experience have always been exciting. I remember the difference preemptive multitasking made to the desktop experience when it was introduced. It made a huge difference on our systems, especially with the security course we were taking at the time (which had all our CPU time completely occupied for about a week).
ScytheBlade1 is right:
The comic didn't imply the kernel. Purists that wash their hands while saying "Linux is just a kernel, not my fault if it cannot (run x, recognize y or perform z)" are the target of this comic which tries to explain why linux (as a whole OS-and-software alternative) is not ready for the desktop.
Indeed, the xkcd in question (a link to the page, not the image) doesn't hang on technical accuracy. It's absolutely a commentary on issues with the "Linux Desktop", with developers putting a relatively rare server concern such as support for thousands of CPUs ahead of something that pretty much every PC user expects to have (the ability to watch Hulu smoothly).
To nit-pick, however, the comic does seem to imply the kernel. In the alt-text you find:
"I hear many of you finally have smooth Flash support, but me and my Intel card are still waiting on a kernel patch somewhere in the pipeline before we can watch Jon Stewart smoothly."
The author is waiting on a Linux kernel patch to fix the Flash issues he has with his Intel card.
That's one of the more annoying XKCDs as far as I'm concerned. It seems to imply that the full-screen Flash video woes are somehow the kernel's fault. I used to like XKCD, but it seems to be getting dumber and dumber each day.
When Markansoft says the above, it's clear that he prizes technical accuracy in the comic enough to forgo appreciation of the general point of humour. However, is the comic's implication really wrong? I don't know much about how Flash works with hardware, or if it requires any specific support for a chipset. The author seems pretty sure he needs a patch for his hardware set up before he can get the same quality of Flash performance already enjoyed by other Linux users. That certainly doesn't remove Adobe and their cross-platform unfriendliness from the situation, but Linux distros are made from work arounds, and the comic's target is the priorities of developers, not Adobe's open source policies.
Good! Driving while drunk and driving while texting are both negligent choices. If that choice leads to someone's death, they certainly should be treated equally. If anything driving while texting is worse since your decision making abilities are not hindered by an altered state of mind.
So is changing the radio station. Why not impose 15+ year prison sentences for anyone at fault in any accident with a fatality, regardless of cause? Each accident could then be treated as a homicide, and forensics would choose which party is the murderer.
Wow; I'm amazed it actually got publicity. In Illinois a couple years ago a driver veered onto the shoulder while downloading a ringtone and hit and killed a cyclist. Almost nobody cared. Well, maybe if it had been a pedestrian or motorist killed people would have paid attention; people in America seem to think that cyclists are fair game.
Motorcyclists also.
I'm with others on this...
Distracted driving like this is responsible for a lot of severe and fatal "accidents". As someone else said- it is willful misconduct that should be punished.
Driving a car is dangerous, period. If you are driving a car- that should be ALL you are doing is driving. If you aren't focused on what you are doing- you are putting your life, and those of everyone around you, in danger. Why is that so hard for some people to understand?
I have a 32-mile long commute to work every day, and EVERY DAY I see people swerving out of their lane and driving erratically while gabbing or texting on a cell phone. I almost get hit at least once a week by one of these winners.
I'll go out on a limb and suggest you've exceeded posted speed limits before, likely many times. That puts you in the same "willful act" of incurring "inherent risk" as texting or drunk driving, doesn't it?
Does anyone know if traffic accident rates have gone up in recent years?
Irrelevant. Accident rates in general depend on too many other things, including safety features (new and old) in cars on the road, how many cars are on the road, and how the roads are designed.
It's not rocket science to deduce that taking your eyes and mind off the road make you a more dangerous driver. If it's not contributing significantly to the accident rate, that just means that a lot of people, believe it or not, aren't stupid enough to do it.
Deduction is not good grounds for imposes harsh penalties. That's just my opinion, of course. However, if texting while driving deserves 15 years in jail, speeding should warrant the same (or worse).
Actually, according to the law, if you cause a fatal accident while texting you're as bad as a drunk driver.
If you're sitting at a red light, it would be difficult to cause a fatal accident; the only possibility I see is if you are hit by someone not expecting a car stopped at a green light, and that's arguably the fault of both drivers.
So don't text while moving, and you should be fine. Amazing concept I know, but seems to be the intent of the law.
It's my understanding that some states allow texting whenever the vehicle is stationary, including at a red light. I haven't bothered to check.
This appears to be the correct legislative response, for once.
I actually disagree on the legislative point. Driving while texting is obviously dangerous, but the statement 'If you choose to drink and drive or if you choose to text and drive, you're assuming the same risk' is still complete speculation. Laws against drunk driving and the punishments involved came about over decades of people driving drunk and society dealing with the resulting accidents. Harsh punishments are in place for drunk driving because it's established to be a major cause of injury and death that still remains hard to eliminate.
Lawmakers are, IMHO, acting irresponsibly if they impose the same punishments based merely on an assumption that because texting while driving it's dangerous, it's AS dangerous. Have they compared the deaths caused by drunk drivers against the deaths caused by people texting? Have they compared the deaths caused by people in accidents who were driving above the speed limit against people texting? Would it seem a correct response to impose sentences of up to 15 years for anyone caught speeding? Speeding is also "willful act" and can just as easily be considered "inherently reckless".
I certainly don't want people texting while driving, but I think the punishment must fit the crime, and that match must be based on more than assumption.
The summarizer says:
But a lot of open source projects seem to treat the press as an annoyance...
And the press-person says:
'...it generally does mean, "Drop everything and answer us now." If the journalist doesn't give you a deadline ("I need to know by 2pm"), it's okay to ask how long you can take to reach the right developer in Poland, but err on the side of "emergency response." It's unreasonable, I know, but so are our deadlines.'
Wow, I can't imagine why volunteer developers consider the press an annoyance. Maybe the press should cut back on the 30-second deadline and take some time to actually get facts, instead of getting something out the door now, even if it isn't right. I think that journalists with this attitude are probably in the wrong business -- you should be doing research and finding the story, not demanding that a non-storyteller drops what they're doing to give you the story on a silver platter. Software only appears to move quickly...in reality, businesses are slow to adopt new software these days. Taking the time to do thorough research on an open source project will not kill the press, just like waiting a few weeks for a story on a software project will not kill the software project.
Not to mention the reporter is likely to be totally unknown in terms of expertise. I imagine many programmers can identify with the annoyance of being asked to explain an intrinsically technical project to a non-technical manager at work (resulting in a manager who can recite some form of car analogy but is no closer to being able to make informed decisions about the project). If I'm contributing code to an open source project as a hobby, the last thing I might want to do is repeat that scenario with a reporter who, by nature of the technical area, should be able to receive the technical explanation (in the same way sports writers understand the sports they cover).
Me, I would prefer to read the right story than the first story. I wish that the press' job to make sure that the right story is the first story...but that shall continue to be my wish.
Well put. I'd rather not have an article written than have one written that's full of errors. I certainly see it as the reporter's job to make sure they get the story right, not the programmer's job to walk the reporter through everything.
Unless there is a company behind the project (a monetary incentive), few projects are going to have a drop-whatever-you're-doing attitude favoring reporters (and most of those companies have designated PR people). If you want something that even approximates a timely response, you'll need to give your what/why/for-whom/deadline tuple right upfront. Consider asking your IT people what they know (you may be surprised, or horrified), but don't take their word for it. Ask them to point you to a good resource.
In addition to your what/why/for-whome/deadline information, include your list of questions in the email. If you get a response, you have your interview. Don't expect programmers and engineers to be technical writers; it's your job to take any highly technical content and make it layman friendly.
Does it make sense for your open source project to get some good press coverage? If no, then my press inquiries are no burden to you. If yes, then is it reasonable to complain about the way in which the opportunities to gain press coverage present themselves?
This is faulty logic, because the vast majority of volunteer, not-for-profit open source projects can easily not fit. Yes it makes sense for the project to get some good press coverage. Yes, press inquiries can easily be a burden to those contributing their time. Good press making sense for a project doesn't mean it's required for it, important for it, or that your potential article is the only way to go about getting it. Good projects will usually end up spreading by their own merit, anyway.
An article about a project might give it a boost, one indeed wanted by those that are working on the project. If the offer to write such an article comes clueless to the situation (by using the same methods described for dealing with a corporation like Microsoft, etc), then there easily can be the case where good press makes sense AND your press inquiries are a burden. That is precisely a reasonable time to complain about the way the opportunity presented itself.
If you want me to have fuller information, please answer my phone call or e-mail.
E-mail is by far a better option, I think.
Or, as suggested elsewhere, if you don't have time then designate somebody as your press representative and tell him/her to return my phone call when it comes ... and also tell him/her to register with Peter Shankman's Help A Reporter Out [helpareporter.com] initiative.
This isn't a question of helping a company or organization deal be better with the press, it's about making open source projects press-friendly. It's a valid topic because the same rules (and the same advice such as this) don't necessarily apply. Consider the project contributors may all be volunteers contributing coding time as a hobby. If the project is still worth writing something about, that isn't changed by the situation where none of the programmers have decided the limited time they contribute will also include PR tasks.
Or, as suggested in Ms. Schindler's IT World article, create a /press page or section on your Web site like the big companies do.
If functionality comes before user documentation, user documentation will come before press releases. If it's all volunteer time, people will prioritize, and those people will be coders.
There you should have information about what your project is about, why you think it matters, its current status, who to contact for more information, screen shots (please remember that print media require high-resolution versions of screen shots or other images for the printing press), press releases and other mentions in the media.
If you (the reporter) has decided the open source project is news worthy, you should have a basic idea on what it is about and why it matters already. Include questions don't have the answer to in your initial email. Make your own screenshots while you're playing around with the software. To put it bluntly, quoting from a press page and including screenshots from the site hardly seems like the methods of a competent tech reporter.
(That's not the same as an FAQ and I won't quote an FAQ. I want to hear from the people behind the project what they're doing and why they're doing it. People make news stories interesting. There's a human angle to everything.)
FAQs are FAQs. As you say, a reporter should be looking for more. Send your own questions in.
Use plain language, not jargon.
Technical projects require technical descriptions. Good technical reporters won't be phased, since anything new to them should be researched anyway. Don't try to do a report on the project for the masses if you don't understand the basics.
If you translate that page into a foreign language, have someone fluent in the language (preferably it's his/her native language) double-check your work. If it's a bad translation, it reflects badly on you. I've lost count of how many foreign businesses have an English press kit that reads as though a fourth-grader wrote it up and I have no doubt that many businesses from English-speaking countries have non-English press material that is equally poorly translated.
Again, this isn't about businesses. It's about open source projects specifically because they can be fundamentally different than businesses. As a projects is successful purely by merit, translations will come as people who use the software volunteer them (and they may well be translations of the application ages before they are translations of text on the site).
From the first line in the summary: "Corporations know that part of launching a successful project is projecting the right image to the media. But a lot of open source projects seem to treat the press as an annoyance, if they think about it at all."
If your answer is "open source projects should just do what press-friendly corporations do", you're failing to address the differences between the two. It seems a reporter can much more easily cater better to open source projects than the other way around.
Talk to your local newspaper about a mention in their business/technology section. You may get lucky and have a non-incredible project get written about by nature of it being local; i.e. an overall unexciting twitter client covered through the angle of "twitter" + "local".
The point of this isn't to have subscribers exposed to your project, but gaining another source for greater exposure. I frequently see stories on Slashdot that link to articles on my local paper's online version that I had just read in the hard copy paper that same morning.
"To use a generic kernel you'll need to build an initrd to load your filesystem module and possibly your drive controller or other drivers needed at boot time"
Sorry guys , this is 2009. If the only options to get my devices running is some huge BLOB of a kernel or having to manually hack together an initrd I think I'll stick with other distributions. Installing a distribution is enough work as it is these days without having to worry about fundamentals such as getting the kernel to boot in the first place. This might have been fine in the days when all you wanted out of a setup was a working command prompt and maybe fvwm but these days its just too much work.
(And yes , I used to run slackware up to 11.0)
It is indeed 2009, and installing a distribution is the least work it's ever been. I hardly see how it's become MORE work. I may have become more lazy, however. Even if I muster the motivation to compile a new kernel, I'd hardly call it difficult, and certainly not more difficult than it used to be. In fact, compiling a kernel is probably the strongest Linux deja-vu experience left for me.
The only parts of setting up a Linux desktop that have increased the amount of work are the things I could only dream of 10 years ago, like properly binding everything on my 12 button mouse to fancy new window manager features, and making sure they also work with my fancy 3D video games running under Wine.