Re:The odds aren't even *that* good.
on
Lindows Reviewed
·
· Score: 2
>Actually, if you ask 100 people off the street
>what operating system their computers run,
>you'll be lucky if you get 95 of them that use
>computers, never mind have one.
Another good point... I guess I was looking at it from the point of view of someone in Austin, we're a very wired and tech-saturated town.
>Hell, most of them won't even buy counterfeit
>Levi's if they can avoid it. "It's not the real
>thing, it's not as good."
Heh, I just had this vision of Aunt Tillie commenting that Linux is just a "cheap knock-off of a proper namebrand OS".
-l
Re:So, wait a second...
on
Lindows Reviewed
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
>The majority of people don't like their PC
>crashing randomly, or having to defrag their
>hard drive, or having to completely reinstall
>everything.
Then again, the majority of people don't understand that Windows has anything to do with that. They think it's just part of using a computer.
Quick, what's the most often-cited initial reaction Linux advocates get from new (usually neophyte) converts?
"My computer doesn't crash anymore!"
The reason that's the initial reaction is because it's the biggest shock - they really honestly EXPECT their computer to crash because it's all they've ever known. They don't blame Windows for it. They don't hate Microsoft for it. They blame their COMPUTER and they hate COMPUTERS for it.
If your fuel injectors on your car break, do you hate your car, the manufacturer of your car, or Bosch? Unless you're a mechanic or a car guy, you probably don't even know who the hell Bosch is.
-l
Re:So, wait a second...
on
Lindows Reviewed
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
>1. the public's general dislike of windows
Just curious, not intending to troll, but will probably be regarded as such...
Which public is this? The open source loving slashdot reading MS bashing public? Or the remaining 99% of the computing world, most of which have no opinion on Windows positive or negative, it's just what their computers at work and home happened to come with (unless they're using Macs, of course)?
For the vast majority of computer users, the OS isn't the source of religious fervor Linux users seem to think it is. It's just what runs in the background while they look at web pages or read email or balance their checkbook.
They couldn't give a rat's ass what their computers run as long as they can double-click on the picture of a 1040 and fill out their tax forms.
Ask 100 random people on the street what operating system their computers run, and of the 95 that answer "Windows", probably 20 will be able to tell you which flavor of Windows it is (95/98/NT/ME/2K/XP). Ask those 20 how much RAM their computer has, and probably 10 will tell you it came with 40 gigs of RAM.
Honestly, folks, it's nice that you find so much meaning in hating Microsoft, but please don't assume that the rest of the world feels the same way.
The vast majority of people out there DON'T CARE.
Slashdot is NOT a cross-section of computer users.
>I think an easy to use, Joe User can make his
>own kernel is a great step as far as making
>linux more usable for the masses,
I'd think that making the whole system more intuitive from a Joe User perspective would be a better step than making it easier for him to do something *he should never have to do anyway*.
Of course, I still protest that Hillary Swank won an Oscar for "Boys Don't Cry", yet the Academy totally overlooked her groundbreaking work in "The Next Karate Kid".
>"Hey, I'm just doing my job. You give me juris-my-diction crap, you can cram it up your ass."
The irony of someone bitching about an over-quoted book/movie using a line from an over-quoted (and entirely over-rated) movie as their.sig is left as an exercise for the reader.
>yes, we've all seen the movie...let...it....go.
Yes. Do.
-l
...who thinks The Matrix was okay, but nothing all THAT special...
>Given that a 100G hard drive is cheaper than any
>removable media solution, why not just buy
>another hard drive [...] ?
Because part of the idea of a serious backup solution is having multiple incarnations of backups. While this might be overkill for a home backup solution, bear with me...
What good is it to back up every week if the data you backed up Saturday night was corrupted Saturday afternoon and overwrote last Saturday's GOOD backup?
>now, after having seen the previews, etc, i have
>a new cast of voices and visuals to go along
>with my imagination as i read the book.
Maybe it's just me, but after having read _The Hobbit_ and _LotR_ a dozen or so times, I don't need Hollywood to provide the voices. Tolkein did a damn fine job of fleshing out the characters to such an extent that I've had my idea of what Gandalf sounded like since I was 10 years old.
I've had my ideas of what Aragorn and Elrond looked like (and it ain't Viggo Mortenson OR Agent Smith^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HHugo Weaving). I've imagined the balrog and the orcs and the fireworks at Bilbo's birthday party for 20 years, and while I have every confidence that the movie will be good, they won't be nearly as spectacular as what Tolkein helped create in my mind.
Then again, maybe I'm just jaded and NOTHING will recreate on the screen what I've always imagined Middle Earth was like.
Granted, the recent SciFi and MTV specials DID show that Hobbiton is pretty close...
The Workplace Shell was a good idea. Neat concept, object based, yadda yadda.
But put up against the Windows GUI (even Windows 3.x, but it was MUCH worse when Windows 95 came out), the OS/2 GUI just felt... raw.
The Windows 95 GUI had a level of polish and sparkle, it felt "finished", whereas OS/2's GUI always felt like they had gotten the basics down and just quit without refining it. And unfortunately, it's not always the technology under the GUI that colors users' perceptions of it, it's the flash and glitter on top.
I wish OS/2 HAD succeeded, I invested a lot of my early career into OS/2, first with monkey-level support, then deployment and deskside support, and finally with LAN Server integration testing. Once it was clear that OS/2 was going nowhere, I did a lot of interviews that included something like "Lots of OS/2 experience here... wish I could help you."
It wasn't until I shifted my focus to Windows and then finally *nix that I was able to break out of niche jobs that every IBM grunt in Austin was trying for.
>Monster instrument cables are severely overrated.
Sure, and horribly overpriced, but people will still buy them. Especially when the salesman fixing them up with their equipment is on commission and sees the chance to sell $300 worth of cables to go with the amp.
But people will buy anything if an "expert" tells them it's better. Look at the green marker CD enhancement kits, Slick 50, any number of body detoxification "systems"...
>Please, do you know of any game empire building
>game before original Civ ?
How about 1981's "Utopia" for the Intellivision?
It wasn't networked, and it was much simpler (but what do you expect on that level of machine?), but it had (fairly simple) resource management, various structures, multiplayer...
>So what this means is that I can only install
>hardware which Microsoft approves. I'm sorry,
>but having to get a company's permission to
>upgrade my own hardware is just too much.
What kind of questions will they be asking?
Who says you can't answer "What kind of video card did you install?" with "None of your damn business"?
Slashdot Mirror
>Actually, if you ask 100 people off the street
>what operating system their computers run,
>you'll be lucky if you get 95 of them that use
>computers, never mind have one.
Another good point... I guess I was looking at it from the point of view of someone in Austin, we're a very wired and tech-saturated town.
>Hell, most of them won't even buy counterfeit
>Levi's if they can avoid it. "It's not the real
>thing, it's not as good."
Heh, I just had this vision of Aunt Tillie commenting that Linux is just a "cheap knock-off of a proper namebrand OS".
-l
>The majority of people don't like their PC
>crashing randomly, or having to defrag their
>hard drive, or having to completely reinstall
>everything.
Then again, the majority of people don't understand that Windows has anything to do with that. They think it's just part of using a computer.
Quick, what's the most often-cited initial reaction Linux advocates get from new (usually neophyte) converts?
"My computer doesn't crash anymore!"
The reason that's the initial reaction is because it's the biggest shock - they really honestly EXPECT their computer to crash because it's all they've ever known. They don't blame Windows for it. They don't hate Microsoft for it. They blame their COMPUTER and they hate COMPUTERS for it.
If your fuel injectors on your car break, do you hate your car, the manufacturer of your car, or Bosch? Unless you're a mechanic or a car guy, you probably don't even know who the hell Bosch is.
-l
>1. the public's general dislike of windows
Just curious, not intending to troll, but will probably be regarded as such...
Which public is this? The open source loving slashdot reading MS bashing public? Or the remaining 99% of the computing world, most of which have no opinion on Windows positive or negative, it's just what their computers at work and home happened to come with (unless they're using Macs, of course)?
For the vast majority of computer users, the OS isn't the source of religious fervor Linux users seem to think it is. It's just what runs in the background while they look at web pages or read email or balance their checkbook.
They couldn't give a rat's ass what their computers run as long as they can double-click on the picture of a 1040 and fill out their tax forms.
Ask 100 random people on the street what operating system their computers run, and of the 95 that answer "Windows", probably 20 will be able to tell you which flavor of Windows it is (95/98/NT/ME/2K/XP). Ask those 20 how much RAM their computer has, and probably 10 will tell you it came with 40 gigs of RAM.
Honestly, folks, it's nice that you find so much meaning in hating Microsoft, but please don't assume that the rest of the world feels the same way.
The vast majority of people out there DON'T CARE.
Slashdot is NOT a cross-section of computer users.
-l
>We just bought a $160K RS6000 "p-Series" and the
>AIX 4.3.3 operating system with unlimited users
>was included for free ($0.00)
Ok, it may have been listed as "$0.00", but how likely do you really think it is that it was "free"?
Most PC's include Windows of some flavor, "at no additional cost", but nobody here will fall for the BS of it being "free" (beer).
-l
>she's quite the looker
She oughta be, she's got the best tits Romero's money could buy.
-l
They're probably focusing on Bally / Williams machines because they were the only ones worth playing.
Stern machines just felt cheap and unresponsive compared to the tight, well-made feel of Bally and Williams.
Go play Rocky & Bullwinkle and tell me it had as nice a feel as Addam's Family or Funhouse or whatnot..
-l
(... dying to find an original High Speed
>I think an easy to use, Joe User can make his
>own kernel is a great step as far as making
>linux more usable for the masses,
I'd think that making the whole system more intuitive from a Joe User perspective would be a better step than making it easier for him to do something *he should never have to do anyway*.
But that's just me.
-l
The Rapture?
Nonono, "Don't Tell Mom The Babysitter's Dead"!
uhm.
Of course, I still protest that Hillary Swank won an Oscar for "Boys Don't Cry", yet the Academy totally overlooked her groundbreaking work in "The Next Karate Kid".
-l
(... do I really need a sarc tag?)
>"Hey, I'm just doing my job. You give me juris-my-diction crap, you can cram it up your ass."
.sig is left as an exercise for the reader.
...who thinks The Matrix was okay, but nothing all THAT special...
The irony of someone bitching about an over-quoted book/movie using a line from an over-quoted (and entirely over-rated) movie as their
>yes, we've all seen the movie...let...it....go.
Yes. Do.
-l
>Wonder where bin laden's dad's money came from?
Actually, bin Laden's dad was in construction.
Granted, much of that construction was probably directly related to the oil industry, but he's not Just Another Saudi Oil Tycoon.
-l
>it has long since degenerated into a den of homosexuals and pornographers.
Which are you?
-l
There is a difference between boycotting a company and them not producing anything you have any real interest in.
When you DON'T buy something that you WOULD have if it had been produced elsewhere, THAT'S a boycott.
What you're doing is called "having some taste".
-l
>Really, would it kill you to pay some respect to
>the very important individual whose birth is
>celebrated yearly on that one day of the year?
I pay respect to that person every day of the year.
I talk to him and wait for the day he says something back.
I figure it'll be sometime this year, since he turns one year old on the 25th...
Oh, you weren't talking about my nephew?
-l
>Given that a 100G hard drive is cheaper than any
>removable media solution, why not just buy
>another hard drive [...] ?
Because part of the idea of a serious backup solution is having multiple incarnations of backups. While this might be overkill for a home backup solution, bear with me...
What good is it to back up every week if the data you backed up Saturday night was corrupted Saturday afternoon and overwrote last Saturday's GOOD backup?
-l
>now, after having seen the previews, etc, i have
>a new cast of voices and visuals to go along
>with my imagination as i read the book.
Maybe it's just me, but after having read _The Hobbit_ and _LotR_ a dozen or so times, I don't need Hollywood to provide the voices. Tolkein did a damn fine job of fleshing out the characters to such an extent that I've had my idea of what Gandalf sounded like since I was 10 years old.
I've had my ideas of what Aragorn and Elrond looked like (and it ain't Viggo Mortenson OR Agent Smith^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HHugo Weaving). I've imagined the balrog and the orcs and the fireworks at Bilbo's birthday party for 20 years, and while I have every confidence that the movie will be good, they won't be nearly as spectacular as what Tolkein helped create in my mind.
Then again, maybe I'm just jaded and NOTHING will recreate on the screen what I've always imagined Middle Earth was like.
Granted, the recent SciFi and MTV specials DID show that Hobbiton is pretty close...
-l
>Windows 98 = Windows 95 OSR2 + IE4 + Plus!
... + ScanReg + Maintenance Wizard + lots of added System Information options + Disk Cleanup + Task Scheduler...
Sure, it was incremental, but it's more than just OSR2 + IE4 + Plus!...
-l
Regarding OS/2's user interface...
The Workplace Shell was a good idea. Neat concept, object based, yadda yadda.
But put up against the Windows GUI (even Windows 3.x, but it was MUCH worse when Windows 95 came out), the OS/2 GUI just felt... raw.
The Windows 95 GUI had a level of polish and sparkle, it felt "finished", whereas OS/2's GUI always felt like they had gotten the basics down and just quit without refining it. And unfortunately, it's not always the technology under the GUI that colors users' perceptions of it, it's the flash and glitter on top.
I wish OS/2 HAD succeeded, I invested a lot of my early career into OS/2, first with monkey-level support, then deployment and deskside support, and finally with LAN Server integration testing. Once it was clear that OS/2 was going nowhere, I did a lot of interviews that included something like "Lots of OS/2 experience here... wish I could help you."
It wasn't until I shifted my focus to Windows and then finally *nix that I was able to break out of niche jobs that every IBM grunt in Austin was trying for.
-l
>Monster instrument cables are severely overrated.
Sure, and horribly overpriced, but people will still buy them. Especially when the salesman fixing them up with their equipment is on commission and sees the chance to sell $300 worth of cables to go with the amp.
But people will buy anything if an "expert" tells them it's better. Look at the green marker CD enhancement kits, Slick 50, any number of body detoxification "systems"...
Snakeoil will ALWAYS sell.
-l
>"musician quality connectors"
Great. Monster Cable will start making cat 5E..
-l
But does GT3 A-Spec have better physics than GT? (didn't play GT2, can't comment on it)
GT had (IMO) too much reliance on the arcadey powerslide instead of pushing the limits of traction to maintain higher speeds through curves.
Also, have they made any quality force-feedback steering wheels for the PS2?
-l
>The equipment in here (sponsored by Cisco and
>other huge network companies) is worth in the >
>$25.000 range.
You don't get much in the way of a gigabit-class router for 25 grand.
Maybe you meant $250,000? Even THAT'S low for the number of switches that must be in place.
-l
>11. Borrow your friend's CD or listen to it at
>his place if you want to verify his
>recommendation.
That can be hard to do if your friend happens to live 8,000 miles away...
-l
Gotta say, Wil, that bowling shirt was cool.
But since I already sent email to that effect, I guess I'm (-1: Redundant).
-l
>Please, do you know of any game empire building
>game before original Civ ?
How about 1981's "Utopia" for the Intellivision?
It wasn't networked, and it was much simpler (but what do you expect on that level of machine?), but it had (fairly simple) resource management, various structures, multiplayer...
Fun stuff. YEARS before Civ on the PC.
-l
>So what this means is that I can only install
>hardware which Microsoft approves. I'm sorry,
>but having to get a company's permission to
>upgrade my own hardware is just too much.
What kind of questions will they be asking?
Who says you can't answer "What kind of video card did you install?" with "None of your damn business"?
Or play dumb. Say you don't know.
-l