Word on the street says it's similar to a creature that washed up in Florida in 1896. They are comparing samples of the Chilean blob to samples of the 1896 creature (on file at the Smithsonian.)
I was trying to get out of it by stating I'm an Engineer who works at a Science Museum. For the record, that doesn't work. I was Jurer #1, in my first trial, the first time I showed up for Jury duty.
We are talking about odds of survival in the BEST case that is worse than the odds of winning a hand of Blackjack at the casino, compared to your odds of winning a hand of Poker.
Besides, say what you will about jets. FAR more impressive was the B-29. More was spent on the development of that aircraft than the bomb it carried. An aircraft the could cary 20,000 lbs of bombs 3,700 miles was unmatched in the war.
The design was so revolutionary the Soviets copied the aircraft, verbatim, and flew it up until the 60's.
This has the benefit of making sure they never have enough money to move out of the middle class.
Most of my ancestors flocked here from Europe following famines, wars, and religions persecution during the 20th century. All of them with only the clothes on their backs and whatever skills they posessed.
I've never having seen hunger. (Okay, I did live on ramen for a long time through college...) I've never been told that a job was closed to me because I'm Irish, or Polish, or Catholic. To go from a subsistance living and ethno-religious persecution to the middle class in 3 generations is, to me, a miracle.
Having been on a Medical malpractice jury, let me tell you that your average man on the street does not understand the basic vocabulary of science.
I spent a lot of time explaining that the there is not much improvement between a 30% 1 year survival rate and a 15% 1 year survival rate. With numbers like that the person was likely to die, it was just a matter of how. (The law in our state says that for malpractice there has to be a mistake AND harm.)
Lawyers were out there trying to turn statistics into causal results, the experts were saying no way (to both sides). I must have spent the first hour of deliberation just explaining what the numbers meant, why different experts looking at the same results can get different answers, etc.
Just the one that I can think of - use-based dynamic menus. Perhaps someone can point me to earlier cases of this, but I still like it and still find them useful.
There appears to be a religious objection to them in the Linux world, I suspect primarily because the idea came from Microsoft. OK - so some people hate them, meaning that the feature should be configurable. Despite that, I'd like to see dynamic menus start making their way outside of the Windows world.
From a pure GUI standpoint Dynamic menus are an abomination. Users should be presented with a set of alternatives not exceeding 7 at a time. If you have all that much to display USE ANOTHER PRESENTATION METHOD. A menu is supposed to be a shortlist, not a catalogue.
Besides, how are you supposed to make a dynamic menu work on a touch screen? Badmouth them all you want, but they are more common than people realize. No you don't see them on people's desk... unless that desk happens to be at an industrial process station, a point of sale system, an appliance, etc.
Plus, have you ever tried to explain how to use those complex widgets to anyone? How do you document a dynamic menu? (Click... no... select... well select then drag over to... no what you want isn't there yet, drag over to..)
I do thing we are approaching the issue from 2 different sides. I'm arguing that any sort of repairs are generally done by a skilled technician. You are arguing that most users are concerned with the task at hand.
Indeed, I see no conflict in the idea that we develop 2 different interfaces for a computer:
A Point-and-Click interface, respectfully designed for someone of average intelligence. Windows has done a tremendous job in that respect. (What concept was developed, stolen, or warped I'll leave for historians to decide.)
A command-line, script, and database interface for the admin types.
Simply put, a user works from the top level task, and decends down into successive levels of detail. An administrator is generally working a detail at a time, building up to top-level task. Admins are also more likely to employ automation tools, and there has been not automation tool yet made that rivals a scripting language.
Administrator level tasks developed into a WIMP interface a clumsy and a hinderance. User's are only prepared to work with what is in front of them. Discovery is a difficult process on the command line.
Now, does an operating system exist with a good administrator interface? Not yet. Unix is good start, but there are so many scripting languages to choose from, commands don't have a uniform grammer, there is not standard database format (beyond the flat file) for storing information.
Windows, while having the command line, only allows you to work with most admin-level functions through that annoying MMC. The registry is an appauling rat's nest of a database. They still mix and match code and data, text files, registry entries, hive files. Trying to automate much of anything, especially on a network level, is painful. I should know, I admin about 150 Windows boxes.
We'll get there eventually. Windows is becoming more Unix-like. (Actually the 2K/XP network stack was swiped from BSD.) Linux is becoming more Windows like. Soon it will be hard to tell the difference, with the exception of course that Linux is cheaper.
I can't really imagine him as the voice in a cartoon.
Does this mean that he is moving into the kids movie realm now?
I know that he says that he rejected the following he got from wuss movies that he started in as beefcake type roles (Legends of the Fall and such).
Perhaps he is now rejecting the following he got from films like Seven and Fight Club.
Or maybe he just likes Linux.
Let be first begin with groveling and self deprication. (Whap, canoe paddle right to the forehead.)
Personally, I think it's not a matter of what Joe servicepack is or is not capable of doing.
I will conceed that most peripherals purchased today for Windows XP will work right out of the box with a driver CD. Linux would be very hard pressed to replicate that.
I will argue that most End-Users don't muck around with hardware very often. By gum, they don't muck around with software either. My wife and I run a tutoring business for middle-aged and beyond folks. Most run Windows, and a few run Macintosh. Most of our business is repeat customers, who need software installed, basic system maintenance, help with a new (fill in the blank device), or additional training on the supposedly easy to use Office suite. I love Windows, I love Office, they provides a great supplemental income for my family.
Now let us say there are 3 types of users in the world, and instead of computers we will use baking as an example.
Consumers: A good number of people can pick out cupcakes at the local supermarket. Beyond that they can barely heat a cup of instant coffee in the microwave.
Tinkerers: A good number of people can follow a recipe calling for various ingrediants, and posess a core set of experiences, tools, and techniques that will allow them to bake their own cupcakes. More advanced folks have fun with the icing.
Gurus: A select few individuals know enough about baking to conjure up a recipe on the fly.
I am a terrible baker. (I do make mean stews, stir-fry's, and barbaques.) My wife will not let me near her oven. I have managed to ruin Apple pie. I find the process frustrating, and completely lacking in creative license.
I have an advantage as a consumer of food, because the human digestive tract is a fairly standard interface. They make a tremendous number of shrink-wrap type products for it.
Computers are not nearly that developed. Nor will they be for quite some time. How many orifaces on your current system were present on your previous computer? How many new and radically different technologies have come out since you bought your last computer?
Indeed, computer products are more like books than food. You need to posess a few basic skills to use a book, namely the ability to read, the ability to understand what is written, and the ability to contemplate new ideas as they are presented.
There are no "consumers" of books. There are only tinkerers. A book in it's "compiled" form would be a Movie. Movies take a hell of a lot more budget to produce, and even then is it available on VHS, Beta, DVD, VideoCD, 35MM?
To me, you will never create a foolproof system that handles all of the unknowns and the bucket full of knowns about a specific system. In the absence of a perfect automation, the Linux approach is at least sound engineering practice. In that approach everyone is assumed to be a tinkerer with at least a limited ability to rationalize independently.
Where Windows goes wrong is trying to make the user a passive participant in the operation of the machinery. If something goes wrong with a Movie, you are stuck watching and endless loop, or a white screen. How many times after watching a movie did you miss something, and have to watch it again? Let's face it, when the system works, it works. But when it doesn't you get nothing out of it.
Does Linux need a bit more work? Yes. But most of that work should be done by the folks who make the hardware. I find it laughable that after expending the effort to code a driver and a gui, and jump through the hurdles to have a driver signed by M$, a vender can come back a say Linux is too hard to support.
I will give them this, we do need a standardized, automated mechanism to transparently compile a new driver for the current Kernel, or the ability to pre-compile a module for a generic kernel. I think the present hardware detection tools (kudzu, pcmcia, and hotplug come to mind) are downright sexy. Now we just need to give them what they need to extend themselves to adapt to the unknown.
Ach. I've managed to talk around in circles. Windows sucks. Linux sucks. They both suck in different ways. I personally prefer the shortcomings of Linux.
The great advantage Microsoft has is that every piece of hardware you buy comes with Windows drivers.
Okay smart guy, go find an XP driver for a 6 year old no-name scanner. How about one of those cheapy JamCams? Old TV Tuner card?
Okay, something more modern: A general purpose driver for a firewire camcorder. Ok, that last one exists, but you have to either use the dippy program from the vendor or shell out a couple hundred dollars for Adobe Premier.
I like Linux because they don't try (can't really) bundle the end-user software with the driver. Which makes it really handy for when the vender get's tired of supporting it and stops making drivers for the latest Windows. I gave a few hundred dollars in equipment that works perfectly, and I can't afford to keep replacing it when I can't find drivers.
I'm repeating myself of course, but whatever happened to good old honesty? It seems to be about as extinct as the dodo bird today.
Just remember, lack of honesty is but one side product of our bandwidth deprived media system. When I say bandwidth deprived, I don't mean they don't have a large swath of frequencies on which to carry a signal.
I mean that they deliberately force all signals to be condensed to 30 second soundbytes, interspliced between commercials. With the level of "compression" required to make a message fit under those constraints you couldn't be honest if you tried.
Hey just try explaining ANYTHING in a 30 second soundbyte.
I know Philadelphia has a fairly large number of unemployed Lawyers. Surely one of them would take up the charge. Hell, I'd set up a fundraiser to pay the court fees.
Although, the folks to be doing the suing should really by Phillips (and ironically) Sony. They license the CD logo and the CD-Audio trademark. Producing materials that cripple the standard is grounds to have a license revoked.
What are you saying, that you want a giant monopoly doing free software support staffed by a handfull of techies?
Try not to think of it as a "Monopoly." I prefer "Clue." (That was kernel panic with the named pipe in the...)
No, I'm seeing legions of Techies. The major perk, when they aren't taking calls, they get to troll on Slashdot and test out Quake all day. Of course, each one has to build from scratch their own workstation in their given Distro of choice, keep it up to date, and regularly try to hack everyone else's in the building.
Think of all the unemployed techies who will basically work for bandwidth! Hell, we could have Indian firms outsourcing to us if we throw in free coffee! MUHAHAHAHHAHA
(Wipes drool off mouth). But seriously, Linux support at that level would be a fun job. I would gladly be paid to do it, largely because I'm out there every day already as a volunteer.
Hey, need an "American Oversees Expert/Consultant?"
I'll be happy to be "the voice" on the other side of conference calls explaining what is going on. Hey, I even have an assistant with an Indian accent and a job title at the prestigious "Franklin Institute."
Heck, being a one man helpdesk/network engineer/IT lap dog for a year, I'm at the point I can get into character while taking a call on the John. (Er, the loo.) I have a couple of phone personas, I can be the hyper-caffinated geek, Mr. Spock, the Toaist monk, or the surly Yank.
My rates:
Restating to the customer what you just told me in a different way: $50.
Actual advise that requires me to call on the massive corpus of Linux trivia I have collected: $100
Telling the customer that what they are asking for would be impossible to do even under windows: $150
Explaining to your customer how a system works in parable form: $200 (Only available for the Toaist monk.)
Well don't we all wish we could abdicate [dictionary.com] the death penalty. Now if you were advocating [dictionary.com] the death penality I'd have issues.
Sorry. I just couldn't resist being a grammer snob. This is gonna cost me some karma...
Slashdot Mirror
Word on the street says it's similar to a creature that washed up in Florida in 1896. They are comparing samples of the Chilean blob to samples of the 1896 creature (on file at the Smithsonian.)
I was trying to get out of it by stating I'm an Engineer who works at a Science Museum. For the record, that doesn't work. I was Jurer #1, in my first trial, the first time I showed up for Jury duty.
We are talking about odds of survival in the BEST case that is worse than the odds of winning a hand of Blackjack at the casino, compared to your odds of winning a hand of Poker.
I wouldn't take either bet, personally.
The design was so revolutionary the Soviets copied the aircraft, verbatim, and flew it up until the 60's.
Most of my ancestors flocked here from Europe following famines, wars, and religions persecution during the 20th century. All of them with only the clothes on their backs and whatever skills they posessed.
I've never having seen hunger. (Okay, I did live on ramen for a long time through college...) I've never been told that a job was closed to me because I'm Irish, or Polish, or Catholic. To go from a subsistance living and ethno-religious persecution to the middle class in 3 generations is, to me, a miracle.
I spent a lot of time explaining that the there is not much improvement between a 30% 1 year survival rate and a 15% 1 year survival rate. With numbers like that the person was likely to die, it was just a matter of how. (The law in our state says that for malpractice there has to be a mistake AND harm.)
Lawyers were out there trying to turn statistics into causal results, the experts were saying no way (to both sides). I must have spent the first hour of deliberation just explaining what the numbers meant, why different experts looking at the same results can get different answers, etc.
I just hope that they have enough to eat tonight.
Paypal donation site, anyone?
There appears to be a religious objection to them in the Linux world, I suspect primarily because the idea came from Microsoft. OK - so some people hate them, meaning that the feature should be configurable. Despite that, I'd like to see dynamic menus start making their way outside of the Windows world.
From a pure GUI standpoint Dynamic menus are an abomination. Users should be presented with a set of alternatives not exceeding 7 at a time. If you have all that much to display USE ANOTHER PRESENTATION METHOD. A menu is supposed to be a shortlist, not a catalogue.
Besides, how are you supposed to make a dynamic menu work on a touch screen? Badmouth them all you want, but they are more common than people realize. No you don't see them on people's desk... unless that desk happens to be at an industrial process station, a point of sale system, an appliance, etc.
Plus, have you ever tried to explain how to use those complex widgets to anyone? How do you document a dynamic menu? (Click... no... select... well select then drag over to... no what you want isn't there yet, drag over to..)
Indeed, I see no conflict in the idea that we develop 2 different interfaces for a computer:
Simply put, a user works from the top level task, and decends down into successive levels of detail. An administrator is generally working a detail at a time, building up to top-level task. Admins are also more likely to employ automation tools, and there has been not automation tool yet made that rivals a scripting language.
Administrator level tasks developed into a WIMP interface a clumsy and a hinderance. User's are only prepared to work with what is in front of them. Discovery is a difficult process on the command line.
Now, does an operating system exist with a good administrator interface? Not yet. Unix is good start, but there are so many scripting languages to choose from, commands don't have a uniform grammer, there is not standard database format (beyond the flat file) for storing information.
Windows, while having the command line, only allows you to work with most admin-level functions through that annoying MMC. The registry is an appauling rat's nest of a database. They still mix and match code and data, text files, registry entries, hive files. Trying to automate much of anything, especially on a network level, is painful. I should know, I admin about 150 Windows boxes.
We'll get there eventually. Windows is becoming more Unix-like. (Actually the 2K/XP network stack was swiped from BSD.) Linux is becoming more Windows like. Soon it will be hard to tell the difference, with the exception of course that Linux is cheaper.
--Sean
Or maybe he just needs some money.
Please Mr. Spielberg...
Pretty, pretty, please...
With sugar on top...
Short answer: No.
Since when has a Linux user honestly given a cr*p what anyone else thinks?
Rock on boys!
The "push" and "pop" implementation on the beehive terminals leaves a bit to be desired.
Personally, I think it's not a matter of what Joe servicepack is or is not capable of doing.
I will conceed that most peripherals purchased today for Windows XP will work right out of the box with a driver CD. Linux would be very hard pressed to replicate that.
I will argue that most End-Users don't muck around with hardware very often. By gum, they don't muck around with software either. My wife and I run a tutoring business for middle-aged and beyond folks. Most run Windows, and a few run Macintosh. Most of our business is repeat customers, who need software installed, basic system maintenance, help with a new (fill in the blank device), or additional training on the supposedly easy to use Office suite. I love Windows, I love Office, they provides a great supplemental income for my family.
Now let us say there are 3 types of users in the world, and instead of computers we will use baking as an example.
I am a terrible baker. (I do make mean stews, stir-fry's, and barbaques.) My wife will not let me near her oven. I have managed to ruin Apple pie. I find the process frustrating, and completely lacking in creative license.
I have an advantage as a consumer of food, because the human digestive tract is a fairly standard interface. They make a tremendous number of shrink-wrap type products for it.
Computers are not nearly that developed. Nor will they be for quite some time. How many orifaces on your current system were present on your previous computer? How many new and radically different technologies have come out since you bought your last computer?
Indeed, computer products are more like books than food. You need to posess a few basic skills to use a book, namely the ability to read, the ability to understand what is written, and the ability to contemplate new ideas as they are presented.
There are no "consumers" of books. There are only tinkerers. A book in it's "compiled" form would be a Movie. Movies take a hell of a lot more budget to produce, and even then is it available on VHS, Beta, DVD, VideoCD, 35MM?
To me, you will never create a foolproof system that handles all of the unknowns and the bucket full of knowns about a specific system. In the absence of a perfect automation, the Linux approach is at least sound engineering practice. In that approach everyone is assumed to be a tinkerer with at least a limited ability to rationalize independently.
Where Windows goes wrong is trying to make the user a passive participant in the operation of the machinery. If something goes wrong with a Movie, you are stuck watching and endless loop, or a white screen. How many times after watching a movie did you miss something, and have to watch it again? Let's face it, when the system works, it works. But when it doesn't you get nothing out of it.
Does Linux need a bit more work? Yes. But most of that work should be done by the folks who make the hardware. I find it laughable that after expending the effort to code a driver and a gui, and jump through the hurdles to have a driver signed by M$, a vender can come back a say Linux is too hard to support.
I will give them this, we do need a standardized, automated mechanism to transparently compile a new driver for the current Kernel, or the ability to pre-compile a module for a generic kernel. I think the present hardware detection tools (kudzu, pcmcia, and hotplug come to mind) are downright sexy. Now we just need to give them what they need to extend themselves to adapt to the unknown.
Ach. I've managed to talk around in circles. Windows sucks. Linux sucks. They both suck in different ways. I personally prefer the shortcomings of Linux.
Okay smart guy, go find an XP driver for a 6 year old no-name scanner. How about one of those cheapy JamCams? Old TV Tuner card?
Okay, something more modern: A general purpose driver for a firewire camcorder. Ok, that last one exists, but you have to either use the dippy program from the vendor or shell out a couple hundred dollars for Adobe Premier.
I like Linux because they don't try (can't really) bundle the end-user software with the driver. Which makes it really handy for when the vender get's tired of supporting it and stops making drivers for the latest Windows. I gave a few hundred dollars in equipment that works perfectly, and I can't afford to keep replacing it when I can't find drivers.
It was a reference to Office Space.
Just remember, lack of honesty is but one side product of our bandwidth deprived media system. When I say bandwidth deprived, I don't mean they don't have a large swath of frequencies on which to carry a signal.
I mean that they deliberately force all signals to be condensed to 30 second soundbytes, interspliced between commercials. With the level of "compression" required to make a message fit under those constraints you couldn't be honest if you tried.
Hey just try explaining ANYTHING in a 30 second soundbyte.
I know Philadelphia has a fairly large number of unemployed Lawyers. Surely one of them would take up the charge. Hell, I'd set up a fundraiser to pay the court fees.
Although, the folks to be doing the suing should really by Phillips (and ironically) Sony. They license the CD logo and the CD-Audio trademark. Producing materials that cripple the standard is grounds to have a license revoked.
You read the post about the Nose Pirates, didn't you?
Try not to think of it as a "Monopoly." I prefer "Clue." (That was kernel panic with the named pipe in the ...)
No, I'm seeing legions of Techies. The major perk, when they aren't taking calls, they get to troll on Slashdot and test out Quake all day. Of course, each one has to build from scratch their own workstation in their given Distro of choice, keep it up to date, and regularly try to hack everyone else's in the building.
Think of all the unemployed techies who will basically work for bandwidth! Hell, we could have Indian firms outsourcing to us if we throw in free coffee! MUHAHAHAHHAHA
(Wipes drool off mouth). But seriously, Linux support at that level would be a fun job. I would gladly be paid to do it, largely because I'm out there every day already as a volunteer.
Um, I think they are called IBM, RedHat, and Suse (amoung others.)
I'll be happy to be "the voice" on the other side of conference calls explaining what is going on. Hey, I even have an assistant with an Indian accent and a job title at the prestigious "Franklin Institute."
Heck, being a one man helpdesk/network engineer/IT lap dog for a year, I'm at the point I can get into character while taking a call on the John. (Er, the loo.) I have a couple of phone personas, I can be the hyper-caffinated geek, Mr. Spock, the Toaist monk, or the surly Yank.
My rates:
Or how about the guy having child support garnished for the child he has sole custody for. (Thank you fark...)
And no, they don't have conjugal visits.
Well don't we all wish we could abdicate [dictionary.com] the death penalty. Now if you were advocating [dictionary.com] the death penality I'd have issues.
Sorry. I just couldn't resist being a grammer snob. This is gonna cost me some karma...