I didn't say free, I said default. Windows gives you a bunch of fancy colors to choose from from or you can set your own for most elements. Almost every desktop dist of GNU/Linux gives you several themes to choose from for Gnome KDE or whatever and you can still set your colors for everything.
OSX gives you two color schemes (if you count Graphite as a color) for a few things, lets you change the colors of some fields, and it gives you a whole bunch of backgrounds which most of it essentially look the same in different colors.
That's WTF, though the latest version I've used is Tiger.
That's a pretty bi-polar way to look at it. Apple might be making a killing off their iPods but surely for many people their cross-pollination is a gateway drug into Macs and Thinking Differently (even though by default OSX gives you no room for customization, you're practically expected and heavily advised to use the stock proprietary software and they'll try their damnedest to lock any third party stuff out of what they can. See: iPhone).
They don't have to do anything to keep 'the Mac user friendly and intuitive' because OSX stands like a great monolith just begging you to try to mess with it and to see who's boss. Then you do, then things stop working, then you have to reinstall back to Graphite Monolith.
I hate proprietary software but for some damned reason I love Macs. Maybe it's the mind control rays that Apple has put so much work into in their secret labs.
That's it! Apple is like smoking! It's cool, it's addictive, it's rebellious, and you're sure to assault anyone who talks down to you for being into it with an ice pick.
I think of MMO's differently, they're not often so much a single-player experience or a story as they are a romp in the park. Anti-hack's bother me though, I don't believe any of them really work and they're everywhere, especially in the free korean games I keep getting swept up into.
To require an internet connection just to play through a story, though not as incredible of a suggestion as it might have been ten or even five years ago, is still like... you know... Crap.
This makes me wonder, books have libraries, often you'll even find movies and music legally shared by a library. No one would DARE say a damn thing about libraries stealing from the authors, even though by reading a book you have effectively 'copied' it to yourself, even though it's not verbatim (except for some extraordinary individuals). Maybe we'll someday see games shared out the same way.
I haven't paid for very many games in my life, usually they were gifts for other people, but the only games I've ever bought for myself were games I already knew that didn't have any ludicrous and pointless copy protection schemes. The last game I actually paid for was Darwinia.
It's not some kind of strike, I just won't pay for games that have DRM. That doesn't mean I won't download it and get a crack. I'll treat GNU/Linux built games the same, they're not going to get any special treatment just because I like using Ubuntu more than Windows.
If a game has DRM and isn't cracked, then I just won't play it and I might look away from games from that publisher/developer/whatever in the future.
It seems like the only responsible thing to do when so many (often free software) developers are getting into Java for platform independence and something relatively easy to work with that won't die out with a new version of [Proprietary Operating System].
Detrimental but we do it anyways... alcohol, tobacco, television, fighting, preservatives, pets we're allergic to, driving old, inefficient cars... name one thing you do in a day that doesn't involve putting something into your body or putting it back out that is completely necessary.
Even if we get two things done less efficiently than if we did each of those things separately, we're still getting two things done at the same time. This seems perfectly fine for two jobs that don't have to be done perfectly or rapidly.
It doesn't matter anyhow, even if it is bad for us it's still human nature to push the limits of our thinking, even if it's regularly over what we can do.
We could always just ship the abundance of water we have to Mars. Oh, wait, that's 10 years from now when politicians can't deny global warming any longer and they'll need some other boneheaded assumption to go on like water not being all that heavy to launch into space. The shit practically lifts itself!
This won't really effect my vote for Obama. This is similar to the approach he's taking with 'universal healthcare'. Health care as a truly socialized service will have an incredible and underhanded force against it by the insurance companies and lobbyists and whoever else, it's a nearly impossible sell because of who's already in the bunk. But, his suggested approach is reasonable because it will help the people that need it but the insurance companies have no reason to fight it.
There's too many people, people in too much power trying to protect the telecoms, but the legal situation as it is with wiretapping is unacceptable. What can be changed must be changed quickly and the stuff that will be difficult to effect until after he is in office will have to wait.
Even if the telecoms can't be punished for whatever harm they might have done, that's no reason to ignore everything else Obama has promised, certainly in contrast to what little good McCain has promised.
I actually had to deal with this a lot, I tried to be the over achiever but my anxiety got me stuck in 'Special Education', which was supposed to be divided into Emotionally Disabled, Physically Disabled, and Mentally Disabled, but a kid that was put in either one was treated crippled, stupid and crazy.
It was a 'free ride', I didn't really have to do anything to get along, but these classes always had textbooks from at least 4 'grades' below me and the teachers seldom knew anything besides reading the book and answering the questions and letting kids fool around without going too far.
This would have been just fine if it wasn't so frustrating for me to not feel like I was learning anything. No one could seem to understand why I was bringing in my own encyclopedias to read.
Even though I was supposed to get the attention of my 'IEP', or 'Individual Education Plan', it was always 'coping with other students better' and 'being on time for class'.
Trying to force me to learn social skills was a futile attempt, all I needed was my nose in a book that was actually interesting instead of carefully phrased for someone half my age.
This was all before the No Child Left Behind bit, and I don't know what it might have done for those classes, but those classes were the ones that needed the funding instead of the scrapings from the bottom of the pot.
So if what this article suggests is true, I would have been damned either way.
I think it's more the case that no child is getting the education and attention they need. It's only more obvious now that the students that give a damn about their education are getting hurt too.
What the education system needs is more educators and smaller classes and some actual regard for individual needs instead of the varsity segregation clique garbage.
I canceled my NetFlix account because they never responded to me when I asked 3 times if they would ever have a way to view their streaming thing in GNU/Linux or at least Firefox instead of being forced to use Internet Explorer.
Not a bad idea, mailing DVD's back and forth (the US postal service has to get SOME use now with the internet taking over), and the price wasn't something to cause any hesitation, I just couldn't stand getting ignored.
Does this mean a government that actually has the balls to do something about Microsoft without discussing how much it can hurt their business or allowing lobbyists and interests groups to undermine the legal system is finally going after them?
The best part about this is we won't have to wait 3 years to see where this goes.
Even when I get my hands on licensed copy of a game with useless copy protection, I still get a crack for it. It's awkward to say I trust code that's been around on the street more than I trust something supposedly pristine and perfect from the original developers.
A virus that can wipe out all my files is somehow less frightening than -choosing- to rub up against SecuROM and company.
This should be good news for Electronic Assholes, when the activation servers aren't around anymore they won't have to bother releasing a patch to unlock the game. In fact, they don't even need the activation servers now, they just have to point users to ThePirateBay. Save them all sorts of trouble!
Your logic is ridiculous, at 99% compatibility for Open Office, it outdoes Microsoft Office's general compatibility with itself.
The situation you provided is very exclusive to a boss who is intelligent enough to realize the difference between MS Office and Open Office and having to work 100% of the year long.
In a normal business year, 99% compatibility is much closer to 1 day something going wrong, assuming your claimed statistics are even worth arguing.
Regardless of how meaningless a percentile is, it is apparent that many programs, especially ones included with *buntu-desktop packages, just don't tell you enough.
I tried to get into documenting software for Ubuntu. I wanted to help but I didn't really have any programming skills, I think the most complicated stuff I've ever done is scripts for mIRC and some HTML.
After really sitting down with some programs, I realized I just had no idea where to start. There was certainly more to be said than who made the program and what license it was under like many programs have in their 'help' and 'about' menu, but it really does get to be an enormous task and it's a certain amount of responsibility because the few people that will read the documentation first will take everything it says to heart.
I might try again, but I'm going to be sure I really have time to do it and the patience to read through source code. mangu is right, even though I don't know how to program but it's not hard to figure some things out and sometimes there's vital comments 'between the lines'.
I have noticed more programs (included in Ubuntu) have the information I need when I care to look at it now, I generally check documentation for command line arguments and stuff in case --help won't tell me everything or anything at all. At least someone's getting the job done.
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I didn't say free, I said default. Windows gives you a bunch of fancy colors to choose from from or you can set your own for most elements. Almost every desktop dist of GNU/Linux gives you several themes to choose from for Gnome KDE or whatever and you can still set your colors for everything.
OSX gives you two color schemes (if you count Graphite as a color) for a few things, lets you change the colors of some fields, and it gives you a whole bunch of backgrounds which most of it essentially look the same in different colors.
That's WTF, though the latest version I've used is Tiger.
That's a pretty bi-polar way to look at it. Apple might be making a killing off their iPods but surely for many people their cross-pollination is a gateway drug into Macs and Thinking Differently (even though by default OSX gives you no room for customization, you're practically expected and heavily advised to use the stock proprietary software and they'll try their damnedest to lock any third party stuff out of what they can. See: iPhone).
They don't have to do anything to keep 'the Mac user friendly and intuitive' because OSX stands like a great monolith just begging you to try to mess with it and to see who's boss. Then you do, then things stop working, then you have to reinstall back to Graphite Monolith.
I hate proprietary software but for some damned reason I love Macs. Maybe it's the mind control rays that Apple has put so much work into in their secret labs.
That's it! Apple is like smoking! It's cool, it's addictive, it's rebellious, and you're sure to assault anyone who talks down to you for being into it with an ice pick.
That's not true. The solution would be to simply not let the user install anything. Ever.
I think of MMO's differently, they're not often so much a single-player experience or a story as they are a romp in the park. Anti-hack's bother me though, I don't believe any of them really work and they're everywhere, especially in the free korean games I keep getting swept up into.
To require an internet connection just to play through a story, though not as incredible of a suggestion as it might have been ten or even five years ago, is still like... you know... Crap.
This makes me wonder, books have libraries, often you'll even find movies and music legally shared by a library. No one would DARE say a damn thing about libraries stealing from the authors, even though by reading a book you have effectively 'copied' it to yourself, even though it's not verbatim (except for some extraordinary individuals). Maybe we'll someday see games shared out the same way.
I haven't paid for very many games in my life, usually they were gifts for other people, but the only games I've ever bought for myself were games I already knew that didn't have any ludicrous and pointless copy protection schemes. The last game I actually paid for was Darwinia.
It's not some kind of strike, I just won't pay for games that have DRM. That doesn't mean I won't download it and get a crack. I'll treat GNU/Linux built games the same, they're not going to get any special treatment just because I like using Ubuntu more than Windows.
If a game has DRM and isn't cracked, then I just won't play it and I might look away from games from that publisher/developer/whatever in the future.
Have you forgotten, Politicians can do anything if they throw enough of your money at it?
It seems like the only responsible thing to do when so many (often free software) developers are getting into Java for platform independence and something relatively easy to work with that won't die out with a new version of [Proprietary Operating System].
Detrimental but we do it anyways... alcohol, tobacco, television, fighting, preservatives, pets we're allergic to, driving old, inefficient cars... name one thing you do in a day that doesn't involve putting something into your body or putting it back out that is completely necessary.
Even if we get two things done less efficiently than if we did each of those things separately, we're still getting two things done at the same time. This seems perfectly fine for two jobs that don't have to be done perfectly or rapidly.
It doesn't matter anyhow, even if it is bad for us it's still human nature to push the limits of our thinking, even if it's regularly over what we can do.
We could always just ship the abundance of water we have to Mars. Oh, wait, that's 10 years from now when politicians can't deny global warming any longer and they'll need some other boneheaded assumption to go on like water not being all that heavy to launch into space. The shit practically lifts itself!
Same thing I posted on Threat Level...
This won't really effect my vote for Obama. This is similar to the approach he's taking with 'universal healthcare'. Health care as a truly socialized service will have an incredible and underhanded force against it by the insurance companies and lobbyists and whoever else, it's a nearly impossible sell because of who's already in the bunk. But, his suggested approach is reasonable because it will help the people that need it but the insurance companies have no reason to fight it.
There's too many people, people in too much power trying to protect the telecoms, but the legal situation as it is with wiretapping is unacceptable. What can be changed must be changed quickly and the stuff that will be difficult to effect until after he is in office will have to wait.
Even if the telecoms can't be punished for whatever harm they might have done, that's no reason to ignore everything else Obama has promised, certainly in contrast to what little good McCain has promised.
I don't even know what Twitter is
I actually had to deal with this a lot, I tried to be the over achiever but my anxiety got me stuck in 'Special Education', which was supposed to be divided into Emotionally Disabled, Physically Disabled, and Mentally Disabled, but a kid that was put in either one was treated crippled, stupid and crazy.
It was a 'free ride', I didn't really have to do anything to get along, but these classes always had textbooks from at least 4 'grades' below me and the teachers seldom knew anything besides reading the book and answering the questions and letting kids fool around without going too far.
This would have been just fine if it wasn't so frustrating for me to not feel like I was learning anything. No one could seem to understand why I was bringing in my own encyclopedias to read.
Even though I was supposed to get the attention of my 'IEP', or 'Individual Education Plan', it was always 'coping with other students better' and 'being on time for class'.
Trying to force me to learn social skills was a futile attempt, all I needed was my nose in a book that was actually interesting instead of carefully phrased for someone half my age.
This was all before the No Child Left Behind bit, and I don't know what it might have done for those classes, but those classes were the ones that needed the funding instead of the scrapings from the bottom of the pot.
So if what this article suggests is true, I would have been damned either way.
I think it's more the case that no child is getting the education and attention they need. It's only more obvious now that the students that give a damn about their education are getting hurt too.
What the education system needs is more educators and smaller classes and some actual regard for individual needs instead of the varsity segregation clique garbage.
I canceled my NetFlix account because they never responded to me when I asked 3 times if they would ever have a way to view their streaming thing in GNU/Linux or at least Firefox instead of being forced to use Internet Explorer.
Not a bad idea, mailing DVD's back and forth (the US postal service has to get SOME use now with the internet taking over), and the price wasn't something to cause any hesitation, I just couldn't stand getting ignored.
Does this mean a government that actually has the balls to do something about Microsoft without discussing how much it can hurt their business or allowing lobbyists and interests groups to undermine the legal system is finally going after them?
The best part about this is we won't have to wait 3 years to see where this goes.
Well, YOUR math is wrong because you're a DUMB DUMB!
Even when I get my hands on licensed copy of a game with useless copy protection, I still get a crack for it. It's awkward to say I trust code that's been around on the street more than I trust something supposedly pristine and perfect from the original developers.
A virus that can wipe out all my files is somehow less frightening than -choosing- to rub up against SecuROM and company.
This should be good news for Electronic Assholes, when the activation servers aren't around anymore they won't have to bother releasing a patch to unlock the game. In fact, they don't even need the activation servers now, they just have to point users to ThePirateBay. Save them all sorts of trouble!
Your logic is ridiculous, at 99% compatibility for Open Office, it outdoes Microsoft Office's general compatibility with itself.
The situation you provided is very exclusive to a boss who is intelligent enough to realize the difference between MS Office and Open Office and having to work 100% of the year long.
In a normal business year, 99% compatibility is much closer to 1 day something going wrong, assuming your claimed statistics are even worth arguing.
Pfft. I've never heard of FireWire missile launchers! FireWire cell phone chargers! FireWire GPS recievers?!
But seriously, is there such a thing as FireWire keyboards? FireWire mice? FireWire gamepads? Is there even an HID standard for FireWire?
USB is the thing. It's everywhere. It's ubiquitous. The next big standard in USB must remain U.
Regardless of how meaningless a percentile is, it is apparent that many programs, especially ones included with *buntu-desktop packages, just don't tell you enough.
I tried to get into documenting software for Ubuntu. I wanted to help but I didn't really have any programming skills, I think the most complicated stuff I've ever done is scripts for mIRC and some HTML.
After really sitting down with some programs, I realized I just had no idea where to start. There was certainly more to be said than who made the program and what license it was under like many programs have in their 'help' and 'about' menu, but it really does get to be an enormous task and it's a certain amount of responsibility because the few people that will read the documentation first will take everything it says to heart.
I might try again, but I'm going to be sure I really have time to do it and the patience to read through source code. mangu is right, even though I don't know how to program but it's not hard to figure some things out and sometimes there's vital comments 'between the lines'.
I have noticed more programs (included in Ubuntu) have the information I need when I care to look at it now, I generally check documentation for command line arguments and stuff in case --help won't tell me everything or anything at all. At least someone's getting the job done.
... Who? I never watch TV and I've never seen him mentioned on /. that I remember. He effectively doesn't exist to me.
I can't help but think that maybe every person who came up with the idea for DRM wasn't really a programmer or an engineer.
Speaking of flash drives dying, does anyone know of an MP3/whatever player that can use USB flash drives but is not INTEGRATED into one?
When all is lost and there's no hope left, there's only one thing left to do.
Just fork it. Fork it all!
I want to mod that up so bad but it's already at 5 and I don't have any mod points.