Three myths are explored - that Linux is harder to use, difficult to install and that there's not enough apps.
Perhaps it's not "linux's fault", but it is damn near impossible to find a wireless card that actually works with Linux and has the same chipset for more than a few months running. Twice now I've bought cards that were on HCL's that said they should have worked, and twice those cards' manufacturers had moved on to another chipset without changing the model number, leaving me with crap that I have to use ndiswrappers or similar with, assuming I can get it to work at all. It's my understanding that there are other areas of hardware support that are similar, though I have been lucky enough to not run across them.
To claim that "difficult to install" is a myth is to stick your head into a deep deep hole that it ought not be in. The fact is, for some classes of hardware it becomes extremely difficult for anyone who hasn't chased these problems for years to step up and "just do the install". If I gave something like this to my dad, he'd never get it done, and therefore it fails the "easy to install" test.
Sounds like the Senator's office knew the right people to get the message through to the people who were sharing the files incorrectly. How is this frightening? Many people appeal to their Senators over all kinds of issues where you really need to get through to someone in government who's hell bent on ignoring you.
The bottom line is you need a manual recount method that works and is secure. Having a voter walk off with the receipt is NOT secure. Forgery after the fact to try to change the outcome of the election is just one obvious possibility.
The whole idea of print a receipt, verify it says what you want, and deposit it into a secured ballot box makes good sense to most people, and seems the logical way to handle this--and it even uses the same backup technologies that we've been using for decades, so it's not a huge additional burden on the system.
10% of disagreement over "social" issues doesn't change the fact that on the 90% of the rest of their agendas they're corporatists. Shrub is generally left of his "base" (except for "the elite")--just go read the conservative websites copmlaining that they've been sold out. Kerry is generally right of his "base" as well. They're indistinguishable except in rhetoric and in things that really don't matter one whit to how the country is really run.
Not all that great? It doesn't explain a damn thing, it just dives into the middle of stuff assuming you already know half of it, and starts talking about how the last two of a string of 5 numbers used to rate memory performance are usually misinterpreted.
Hello, I was looking for an "explanation" of "memory timings", which includes those first three numbers!
The AVI is downloading way faster than the real media. I clicked on both and it was 15 minutes vs. 15 hours.
The trailer itself is definitely just a teaser, shows off some nice but not terribly groundbreaking CGI. It'll build some hype among those who weren't aware it was coming. The logo's pretty cool, incorporating elements of earlier logos while still being new and different.
How does that contradict the parent posting that if it was done before entering the service, it was a disqualifier?
As far as it goes, if we go to a draft, who's going to bet on the next wave of new lasik patients being about 18?
Re:Similarities between democrat party, communists
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Joe Trippi Interviewed
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they had seen enough of Ashcoft as Governor and Senator, and figured out he was bad news.
As someone who lived there then, I can absolutely say that the people I know who voted for and against Ashcroft did so on this basis more than anything Carnahan (or his widow) had to offer.
Re:Similarities between democrat party, communists
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Joe Trippi Interviewed
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· Score: 1
And two years before, the senate candidate running against John Ashcroft, probably the most conservative candidate to run for office since the 1800's, mysteriously dies in a plane crash. Interestingly enough, several of Clinton's associates have died in plan crashes since he was elected.
Huh? Carnahan was not conservative, and if Clinton was arranging plane crashes, don't you think he'd have taken out Ashcroft and not his competition? You just blew any credibility you had to talk about real facts right here bringing up this Clinton conspiracy crap yet again.
I thought it was the squeaking weasel. But hey, who am I?
I'm pretty damn sick of these 503 errors though. At this rate, any chance they may have one day had that I'd ever become a subscriber (since I'm a regular "contributor to content" here, I do feel some obligation sometimes) will evaporate in about, oh, 30 more seconds.
If you want to design software that actually HAS a gui, you need to pay as much attention to that gui as you do to the rest of the software. If you want to design software with just a CLI, that's a completley different matter, now isn't it? However, CLI has "user interface" as well, and I've seen just as many insanely stupid CLI interfaces (non-intuitive arguments, responses to things like --help that don't follow the common standards, etc) in OSS as I have bad guis.
I'm just amazed that this topic hasn't been taken over by fools (note, I'm not talking about the thread originator or myself here) who seem to think that UI is not important, or must be done by those who give a damn and nobody else needs to bother.
First of all who says it's user unfriendly. Not the people who use it, not the corporations that are adopting it. You say it's not user friendly but that does not count for much does it?
Again, you seem to have this difficulty differentiating between general and specific topics. I didn't say "ALL OSS IS HORRIBLY UNUSABLE." The fact is, quite a bit of it is excellently usable, and as I pointed out elsewhere, I myself use it. Nonetheless, I have seen a strong tendency in SOME OSS, moreso than in other types of software I've been a user of, for the developers or those speaking for the developers to not only dismiss requests for usability testing and improvements, but OPEN HOSTILITY to such things. Some of the responses to a GIMP Usability test on the developers list in particular comes to mind--one woman there has a chip about the size of Texas on her shoulder about any kind of usability testing and went out of her way to be rude and condescending to testers for no particularly good reason. MythTV, while it is excellently usable once you get through the horribly complex setup, also has a very strong negative attitude from the developers to anyone who asks any question that implies that they haven't absorbed everything there is to know by reading the documentation--which honestly isn't (or wasn't, I haven't bothered with it since KnoppMyth absolved me of having to read the source to figure things out) much help to someone who isn't already deep in the thick of V4L and MySQL and so on. Many other similar examples abound.
I think I've already pointed out the fact that I unfortunately don't have enough time to actually have a work life and a family life and fix everything that's wrong with even one OSS project (hell, I hardly have time for the family life itself), much less the many that share these weaknesses. Personally, I can't see how it's much use to claim to be giving to the community at large when you won't take input from that same community, in whatever form that input can be provided--and I don't mean simple statements of "this sucks" which are obviously useless to the developer (you'll note here I'm not addressing any particular developer). Since you seem hell-bent on ignoring the point I've tried to make and instead taking it as a personal attack on all OSS developers everywhere, I can't see much point in wasting my time trying to educate you on the value that input from your users and being at least marginally courteous have. Of course, by so doing, you provide a perfect example of exactly the phenomenon I'm criticizing.
Very nice evasion, taking a silly example trying to ridicule you and act as if it really has any bearing in the comparison.
Let's try again. Tell me exactly how it is that user-unfriendliness is a strength? And how abusing any and all who ask questions without having read the source code to try to make sense of the shitty documentation is a strength?
The bottom line is you are so blinded in your zealotry that you cannot comprehend how "has a weakness" is not the same thing as "is weak". A piece of steel may "have a weakness" and still be quite capable of whatever supporting task it has to do. Nothing is ever so perfect as to need no improvement, and just because the creator of a piece of software may have created something genuinely useful does not mean it cannot be made better if its interface is poor. I guess Eric Raymond must hate open source too given his recent criticisms of the weaknesses of OSS user interface....
One other quick thing, and that is, some of us DID read (or at least attempt to read the mishmash of confusion that some call) the documentation, and still get treated as if we didn't. Never mind spending time trying to phrase questions to be clear that we actually have done some research, trying not to sound accusatory, etc., it's a waste of effort, because you still get told "it's in the documentation go find the needle in the haystack you moron" rather than given anything useful to work with.
I think your definition of "discussion" appears to be equivalent to "attack" too, but that doesn't mean I'm right.
I don't recall saying that OSS was WORSE OVERALL. I simply said that usability (and implied that documentation) almost always seem to be an afterthought (if that), and while that's good for professional sysadmins and other IT people who want to be able to justify their jobs ("it takes someone really smart to understand how to do all this stuff, please pay me well"), it doesn't mean that the software is all it can be.
As far as it goes, closed source is certainly no guarantee of usability studies etc. but the actively hostile attitude toward such things in many OSS circles is counterproductive, and ultimately IS a weakness if your goal is to make the best software possible.
As for whether I like OSS or not, I use OSS every single day at work and at home. I'm using it right now in the form of firefox. So get that chip off your shoulder and listen to honest criticism for what it is instead of taking everything that isn't fawning toadyism as an attack.
There's a difference between not talking to people and actively being rude. The latter seems rampant in all the OSS projects I've bothered to investigate far enough to have contact with developers. I code too--I understand the idea of not wasting your time--but given the state of some of the really shitty documentation out there (just because you, as someone who knows the guts of the program, can use the documentation doesn't mean that I as someone who just started looking at it can--especially given the dearth of any type of "this is the overall architecture and how it all fits together" docs in these same projects), there's nothing to be proud enough of to be justified in literally telling people to fuck off.
Because after all, owning a home, having a toddler and a baby imminent (not to mention a wife), and a day job to pay for all of the above leaves me PLENTY of time to scratch all those itches. Not.
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Perhaps it's not "linux's fault", but it is damn near impossible to find a wireless card that actually works with Linux and has the same chipset for more than a few months running. Twice now I've bought cards that were on HCL's that said they should have worked, and twice those cards' manufacturers had moved on to another chipset without changing the model number, leaving me with crap that I have to use ndiswrappers or similar with, assuming I can get it to work at all. It's my understanding that there are other areas of hardware support that are similar, though I have been lucky enough to not run across them.
To claim that "difficult to install" is a myth is to stick your head into a deep deep hole that it ought not be in. The fact is, for some classes of hardware it becomes extremely difficult for anyone who hasn't chased these problems for years to step up and "just do the install". If I gave something like this to my dad, he'd never get it done, and therefore it fails the "easy to install" test.
What surprises me is they got 224 pages out of it after publishing Google Hacks. They seem kind of redundant to each other....
Sounds like the Senator's office knew the right people to get the message through to the people who were sharing the files incorrectly. How is this frightening? Many people appeal to their Senators over all kinds of issues where you really need to get through to someone in government who's hell bent on ignoring you.
The whole idea of print a receipt, verify it says what you want, and deposit it into a secured ballot box makes good sense to most people, and seems the logical way to handle this--and it even uses the same backup technologies that we've been using for decades, so it's not a huge additional burden on the system.
10% of disagreement over "social" issues doesn't change the fact that on the 90% of the rest of their agendas they're corporatists. Shrub is generally left of his "base" (except for "the elite")--just go read the conservative websites copmlaining that they've been sold out. Kerry is generally right of his "base" as well. They're indistinguishable except in rhetoric and in things that really don't matter one whit to how the country is really run.
Hello, I was looking for an "explanation" of "memory timings", which includes those first three numbers!
So where are the solar control panels located?
The trailer itself is definitely just a teaser, shows off some nice but not terribly groundbreaking CGI. It'll build some hype among those who weren't aware it was coming. The logo's pretty cool, incorporating elements of earlier logos while still being new and different.
As far as it goes, if we go to a draft, who's going to bet on the next wave of new lasik patients being about 18?
As someone who lived there then, I can absolutely say that the people I know who voted for and against Ashcroft did so on this basis more than anything Carnahan (or his widow) had to offer.
Huh? Carnahan was not conservative, and if Clinton was arranging plane crashes, don't you think he'd have taken out Ashcroft and not his competition? You just blew any credibility you had to talk about real facts right here bringing up this Clinton conspiracy crap yet again.
I'm pretty damn sick of these 503 errors though. At this rate, any chance they may have one day had that I'd ever become a subscriber (since I'm a regular "contributor to content" here, I do feel some obligation sometimes) will evaporate in about, oh, 30 more seconds.
So get a Mac and run x86 emulation on it then.
At the very least you need to be able to run some variant of VirtualPC or wine or whatever.
How do these dorks who claim ESP get modded insightful anyway?
UI != GUI last time I checked.
I'm just amazed that this topic hasn't been taken over by fools (note, I'm not talking about the thread originator or myself here) who seem to think that UI is not important, or must be done by those who give a damn and nobody else needs to bother.
Given that McNealy is a FOUNDER of the company, I hardly think he got where he is by having an Ivy League degree and some friends.
Again, you seem to have this difficulty differentiating between general and specific topics. I didn't say "ALL OSS IS HORRIBLY UNUSABLE." The fact is, quite a bit of it is excellently usable, and as I pointed out elsewhere, I myself use it. Nonetheless, I have seen a strong tendency in SOME OSS, moreso than in other types of software I've been a user of, for the developers or those speaking for the developers to not only dismiss requests for usability testing and improvements, but OPEN HOSTILITY to such things. Some of the responses to a GIMP Usability test on the developers list in particular comes to mind--one woman there has a chip about the size of Texas on her shoulder about any kind of usability testing and went out of her way to be rude and condescending to testers for no particularly good reason. MythTV, while it is excellently usable once you get through the horribly complex setup, also has a very strong negative attitude from the developers to anyone who asks any question that implies that they haven't absorbed everything there is to know by reading the documentation--which honestly isn't (or wasn't, I haven't bothered with it since KnoppMyth absolved me of having to read the source to figure things out) much help to someone who isn't already deep in the thick of V4L and MySQL and so on. Many other similar examples abound.
I think I've already pointed out the fact that I unfortunately don't have enough time to actually have a work life and a family life and fix everything that's wrong with even one OSS project (hell, I hardly have time for the family life itself), much less the many that share these weaknesses. Personally, I can't see how it's much use to claim to be giving to the community at large when you won't take input from that same community, in whatever form that input can be provided--and I don't mean simple statements of "this sucks" which are obviously useless to the developer (you'll note here I'm not addressing any particular developer). Since you seem hell-bent on ignoring the point I've tried to make and instead taking it as a personal attack on all OSS developers everywhere, I can't see much point in wasting my time trying to educate you on the value that input from your users and being at least marginally courteous have. Of course, by so doing, you provide a perfect example of exactly the phenomenon I'm criticizing.
Let's try again. Tell me exactly how it is that user-unfriendliness is a strength? And how abusing any and all who ask questions without having read the source code to try to make sense of the shitty documentation is a strength?
The bottom line is you are so blinded in your zealotry that you cannot comprehend how "has a weakness" is not the same thing as "is weak". A piece of steel may "have a weakness" and still be quite capable of whatever supporting task it has to do. Nothing is ever so perfect as to need no improvement, and just because the creator of a piece of software may have created something genuinely useful does not mean it cannot be made better if its interface is poor. I guess Eric Raymond must hate open source too given his recent criticisms of the weaknesses of OSS user interface....
"Arnold Schwarzenegger is weak."
Can you NOT see the difference between these two statements?
One other quick thing, and that is, some of us DID read (or at least attempt to read the mishmash of confusion that some call) the documentation, and still get treated as if we didn't. Never mind spending time trying to phrase questions to be clear that we actually have done some research, trying not to sound accusatory, etc., it's a waste of effort, because you still get told "it's in the documentation go find the needle in the haystack you moron" rather than given anything useful to work with.
I don't recall saying that OSS was WORSE OVERALL. I simply said that usability (and implied that documentation) almost always seem to be an afterthought (if that), and while that's good for professional sysadmins and other IT people who want to be able to justify their jobs ("it takes someone really smart to understand how to do all this stuff, please pay me well"), it doesn't mean that the software is all it can be.
As far as it goes, closed source is certainly no guarantee of usability studies etc. but the actively hostile attitude toward such things in many OSS circles is counterproductive, and ultimately IS a weakness if your goal is to make the best software possible.
As for whether I like OSS or not, I use OSS every single day at work and at home. I'm using it right now in the form of firefox. So get that chip off your shoulder and listen to honest criticism for what it is instead of taking everything that isn't fawning toadyism as an attack.
There's a difference between not talking to people and actively being rude. The latter seems rampant in all the OSS projects I've bothered to investigate far enough to have contact with developers. I code too--I understand the idea of not wasting your time--but given the state of some of the really shitty documentation out there (just because you, as someone who knows the guts of the program, can use the documentation doesn't mean that I as someone who just started looking at it can--especially given the dearth of any type of "this is the overall architecture and how it all fits together" docs in these same projects), there's nothing to be proud enough of to be justified in literally telling people to fuck off.
Because after all, owning a home, having a toddler and a baby imminent (not to mention a wife), and a day job to pay for all of the above leaves me PLENTY of time to scratch all those itches. Not.